Post Office Mediation Scheme

David Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I suspect that during the course of this debate we will hear all too many stories exactly like that one, with awful things happening to sub-postmasters and nothing being done about it. I have already mentioned my constituent Jo Hamilton, who pleaded guilty. She first found that there was a discrepancy of, I think, £2,000. She rang up the help desk, which told her to press certain buttons, and immediately the discrepancy doubled to £4,000. Eventually the discrepancy rose and rose to more than £30,000. There was no proper investigation by the Post Office. She told the “Today” programme last week,

“they couldn’t prove I did it, but I couldn’t prove I didn’t.”

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

Is it a matter of concern to my right hon. Friend, as it is to me, that all the Post Office prosecutions have been conducted in-house? The Crown Prosecution Service has not been consulted, and therefore there has been no element of independent scrutiny prior to the prosecutions’ commencement.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My right hon. Friend was the instigator of my first meeting with the Post Office, which was during the previous Parliament. Unfortunately he was then translated to the Cabinet, so he was unable to pursue these issues as he had previously. He is absolutely right, and I will return to his point in my suggestions, which I hope the Minister will consider.

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot). Like other hon. Members, I congratulate him and his office on the way they have dealt with Members of Parliament during this whole process—they have been very measured and courteous. He has brought together a groundswell of opinion from MPs and put that articulately to the Post Office.

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s disappointment at the way the Post Office has behaved, because I was one of the hon. Members who initially welcomed a mediation process. A mediation process is one of good will, where both sides volunteer to come together to look for a solution. What we have been talking about in this debate is the destruction of many people’s lives—the lives of many citizens who are well thought of in their communities.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Noel Thomas from my constituency, who was a councillor, although not of my political persuasion, in that community, and did more than his fair share of good for people. He ended up in prison because of this system and because he has, I believe—I am speaking personally here—been let down by the Post Office.

In the early stages of the legal matters, I allowed that legal process to go forward, as did other Members. It was not until the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was set up that the wider issues were known. I pay tribute to each and every one of those people for coming together and fighting for what they believe to be right.

My constituent Noel Thomas ended up in prison. There were very serious issues, and he lost his home and his business. The impact felt by the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents was felt by many of mine—even in my small constituency I know of five cases of varying degrees of seriousness—but Noel Thomas’s case is the most public and he is the only person I shall name in this debate, although there are a number of others.

The Horizon system has been looked at as there have been problems with it. Many sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, some of whom are now retired—their post offices have closed for whatever reason—indicated to me in the early stages in 2001-02 that there were issues of concern at that time in rural areas, when the system was going offline and being rebooted. I therefore find it hard to accept that the Post Office has concluded that there was nothing wrong with the system. I shall mention a little later the lack of support and the helplines because they were important.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned—I heard it on the radio as well—people being told by Post Office staff, many of them sub-postmasters, to put money aside and to make it up. That beggars belief. There is no evidence of it in many places, because of the trust between the Post Office as the employer and the sub-postmasters who were running their thing.

[Mr David Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that a lot of sub-postmasters who were subsequently prosecuted for false accounting had in effect been encouraged to engage in false accounting by Post Office support staff? In other words, was not the Post Office itself counselling and procuring an act of false accounting?

[Albert Owen]

Absolutely right. I thought that this system and this scheme were going to identify those issues and that somebody in the Post Office was going to have to answer for their actions, in the way that our constituents have had to answer by going to prison and losing their livelihoods, and various other things. It has been very one-sided.

In another case, the life of a relatively young woman has been ruined because of the accusations. On the advice of a barrister, she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge to avoid a custodial sentence. She feels now that she was let down not just by the Post Office but by the legal system. These are very serious issues. Members from across the House have indicated to me that they are aware of cases being handled in a similar way.

I thought, having had correspondence with other MPs and so on, that this was an independent process. I am now led to believe that the Post Office was judge and jury and was deciding unilaterally which cases were to go forward. I was of the opinion that people who had been found guilty, for the reasons we have outlined, would be allowed to enter the mediation system. I am very disappointed with the way this is turning out, because—I shall repeat this a number of times—we are talking about people’s lives being ruined by this process. I was under the impression that we were moving forward and making progress.

In a third case, a constituent of mine who entered the scheme was helped by the Post Office—as we all know, it paid for the early advice that that person was given—but because their status moved from that of sub-postmaster to employee of another sub-postmaster they were thrown off the scheme. That was discovered at a later stage. Taxpayers’ money had been given to a third party to help that person, to give advice and to come to that conclusion: a complete waste of public money. I argued the case on behalf of my constituent and he was reinstated to the scheme and is moving forward. However, because of confidentiality I do not really know where that case is in the system. A lot of issues need clarification.

I have sympathy with the Minister, because the Post Office, as we know, is not directly a Government body. However, it is a public body that we the taxpayers, and we as representatives, should hold to account. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire and others for doing that.

I shall not go over the other cases that I have, because I am conscious of time, but I have given some examples and we have heard others in interventions. However, I feel let down by the Post Office, my constituents feel let down by the Post Office and I think the country feels let down by the Post Office.

I repeat that I have anecdotal evidence—not hard evidence—that this system was problematic. Of course, computer systems—large-scale IT systems across Government and across public bodies—are problematic, but the reason the Post Office will not admit to these glitches is that, as Members have indicated in interventions, and as I am sure they will indicate in their speeches, people were encouraged to do things that were, in many ways, unlawful. That is a disgrace.

The crux of the debate is that the Post Office encouraged people to commit false accounting, and then it penalised them in the hardest way possible—by taking their livelihoods and reputations from them and destroying their standing in the proud communities we represent. The Post Office is iconic, and the people who serve in it do so with pride, but they have been let down, and it is time that this Parliament—the British Parliament—stood up for them. I am glad we are having this debate, and I want some results.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Swinson]

This is slightly difficult territory, because the working group discussions are confidential. I do not go to those discussions or know what is said in them. I cannot find out what is said in them. Indeed, every party involved in the discussions is bound by confidentiality. So I do not know whether the information mentioned by my right hon. Friend is in fact accurate. That said, I point to the information that we do have from Sir Anthony Hooper, which is that even if what my right hon. Friend says is true and the Post Office has argued for some of the cases not to be mediated, none the less it has gone into mediation on them. In a sense, the point is slightly academic, although I understand the concern on the part of hon. Members. I also take on board and take seriously the comments made by more than one hon. Member about the attitude of senior staff from Post Office Ltd to groups of MPs.

[Mr David Jones]

Looking beyond the issue of mediation, it is clear from what we have heard in the debate that a large number of people have had their life ruined because they adopted accounting practices on the basis of advice given to them by the Post Office. In other words, as I said in an intervention, the Post Office itself was counselling on procuring false accounting. Has my hon. Friend the Minister considered referring that matter to the prosecuting authorities?

[Jo Swinson]

My right hon. Friend is right to recognise that the accusation is a serious one—if true, it would be incredibly serious. It is difficult to know whether that is the case, which is why full investigation is needed. The hon. Member for North Durham made a clear challenge, and a fair one, about ensuring that we get some action and resolution on the issue. The point that I push back on is that many of the cases are incredibly complex, understandably so, because they are dealing with systems and many transactions—