Post Office Horizon Inquiry: Volume 1

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. We welcome the release of volume 1 of the Post Office Horizon inquiry final report and I put on record my thanks to Sir Wyn Williams and the inquiry team for all the work that they have done, alongside all those who gave evidence.

This inquiry lays bare one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in modern British history. Volume 1 focuses on redress and the human impact of the Horizon scandal, which has been evolving since 2000. The human impact is particularly devastating, with the report revealing that at least 13 people may have taken their own lives as a result of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. It also recognises that family members have also suffered from this miscarriage of justice. Even though, as the Minister says, we can never recompense a person properly for this miscarriage, I am sure the whole House will want to ensure that the victims are fully compensated by the schemes, and I would like to put on the record my tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who set up this process of redress.

The report has recommended that the Government and/or the Department, and where appropriate the Post Office and Fujitsu, shall provide a written response to Sir Wyn’s recommendations by 10 October. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will be able to say by 10 October whether they will accept all 19 of the report’s recommendations? The report details that there is still much to be done to ensure justice for the victims, so who and how will those responsible be held answerable for the years of denial and suffering?

This was not simply a technical failure; it was a failure of oversight, governance and accountability. The report finds that the Post Office and Fujitsu knew, or at the very least they should have known, that the Horizon IT system had faults. The sub-postmasters are also described

“as victims of wholly unacceptable behaviour”

by the two companies. Sir Wyn has stated that there are still more than 3,000 claims to resolve and that there have been egregious delays in compensation. Will the Minister therefore update the House on the most recent status of the compensation schemes? What steps is he taking to address these concerns, and how are the Government ensuring that full, fair and fast compensation is delivered without further bureaucracy or delay?

Will the Minister update us on what action is being taken in relation to Fujitsu, which is still being awarded Government contracts? Fujitsu said that it would wait until the inquiry reports to offer compensation, so will the Minister confirm that there is now nothing preventing Fujitsu from paying interim compensation? Will he also confirm that it will be made clear how much he believes Fujitsu should contribute to the redress scheme?

In the spending review, the Government allocated £86 million from its transformation fund for the Post Office, specifically earmarked to support investment plans, including replacing the existing Horizon computer system. Will the Minister update the House on the progress of securing a new computer system for the Post Office and whether that system will replace the Horizon system in its entirety? What assessment has he made of the earlier Capture accounting software and its legacy of problems?

Finally, to move on from this protracted miscarriage, will the Minister confirm when we will see the much anticipated Green Paper on the future of the post office network and how the public can have their say on that consultation? The time for half measures is over. Justice delayed is justice denied, and those affected by this scandal deserve nothing less than the full force of the Government’s commitment to truth, reform and redress. Taxpayers also deserve to know how much Ministers think Fujitsu should pay to resolve these terrible wrongs.

[Gareth Thomas]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and questions. She was right to say in her opening remarks about this being the greatest miscarriage of justice in our country’s history. The responsibility is therefore on us all to do everything we can to make sure the victims receive full and fair compensation, and to ensure that there is never a repeat.

The hon. Lady specifically challenges me on the question of the 10 October deadline that Sir Wyn Williams has put in place. I can confirm that we are determined to meet that deadline. It is particularly important that we do so, as some of his recommendations concern the ongoing delivery of the Horizon compensation schemes and we do not want, inadvertently or not, to delay or hold back any of those claims.

The hon. Lady rightly gives me the opportunity to again pay tribute to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for his work when he was the Post Office Minister. Without question, we would be even further behind without the considerable amount of work and effort that he put in. There are many others in the House who have campaigned long and hard on behalf of the sub-postmasters, including the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), who I see in his place, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), who chairs the Business and Trade Committee.

The hon. Lady asked who and how will those responsible be held to account. She knows that Sir Wyn Williams is due to publish the second part of his report, which focuses on those very questions. We will consider carefully what he has to say about that when we receive his report. I suspect that she already knows that the Metropolitan police is leading an investigation into whether criminal responsibility is at play. More than 100 police officers are working on that investigation and they have identified a number of individuals of interest. We will see what they do with regard to those individuals in due course. As the hon. Lady and the House will understand, Ministers are not in any way involved in such decisions.

What further steps have we taken to deliver and speed up compensation? The hon. Lady will be aware that we have issued the opportunity for sub-postmasters who apply to the Horizon shortfall scheme and who want to accept a fixed-sum payment of £75,000 to do so. We have put in place an appeals process to try to give those who feel they have not received a fair offer to date a chance to get full and fair redress.

There are particular challenges in the Horizon shortfall scheme. If I am honest, it is the scheme that I worry about the most, not least because there are 1,700 cases in which there does not appear to be any evidence of shortfalls. That does not mean that there were no shortfalls; it means that, at this stage, we do not have evidence of what those shortfalls were. As the House would expect, I have gone back to the Post Office and made it clear that we want it to reinvestigate, to see whether evidence can be found in as many of those cases as possible. We are looking very carefully at what we can do about the rest.

On Fujitsu, we will need to see Sir Wyn’s final report to understand fully the degree of Fujitsu’s culpability. I have made it clear to Fujitsu that we think it should bring forward an interim compensation payment, and I hope that it will see the report today and recognise the need to do that.

The hon. Lady also asked me about the Green Paper. We hope to publish it very shortly. One of the issues that it will consider is the future of the Post Office’s IT systems, because we certainly need to move on from the past and Horizon. We will set out in a bit more detail at that point what work we are doing in that regard.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Postmasters who were hit by the Horizon scandal will be concerned to hear Sir Alan Bates describe the compensation process as a “quasi-kangaroo court”. Can the Minister reassure postmasters about the redress that they are due, and reassure taxpayers about the redress that he is seeking from Fujitsu?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and she is absolutely right to draw attention to the continuing need to speed up compensation to sub-postmasters. Since we came into government, we have increased fourfold the amount of compensation paid to sub-postmasters, but there is an awful lot more to do. On the issues that Sir Alan Bates raised, the hon. Lady will know that under the group litigation order scheme, through which his compensation issues are being addressed, there are various independent points on the journey at which to consider the offer—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 1st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Government are far from supporting small businesses to export. Businesses of every size, up and down the country, are failing at a rate not seen since the 2008 financial crash, when Labour was last in power. Confidence is slumping, family businesses are closing, millionaires are fleeing the country—and that is before tariffs hit. What representations is the Minister making to the Chancellor about reversing some of the measures that hit business in her Hallowe’en Budget?

[Gareth Thomas]

I had thought that one of the first contributions from the Opposition Front Benchers today would be to celebrate the £1 billion investment by IKEA in the UK. It is opening its flagship store on Oxford Street today, and committing to a range of investments in other towns and cities across the UK. When the hon. Lady was on the Treasury Committee, I do not know whether she looked at the cuts the previous Government made to help for small businesses in getting their goods into new markets. We are taking active steps to increase the opportunities for small businesses in overseas markets.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Business Secretary, the Minister and the Chancellor have all said that they want growth, including in rural areas. I have searched high and low for business growth statistics since the Budget of broken promises, and I find that, in the last quarter, there has been a growth of 50% in the number of businesses that are in critical financial distress. Why does the Minister think that is?

[Gareth Thomas]

I say gently to the hon. Lady that the difficult decisions that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had to take in the Budget were, interestingly, particularly well explained by her former colleague Kwasi Kwarteng, who made it clear that he thought they had to be taken because of the mistakes that he and the Conservative party had made when they were in government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Business Secretary met recently in Japan with Fujitsu, which developed the Horizon system and has offered to contribute to the compensation for victims. Can the Minister tell the House how much the Secretary of State has asked it to contribute, so that taxpayers are not on the hook for £1 billion?

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Lady is right to reference the discussions that my right hon. Friend had with the chief executive officer of Fujitsu. That company has agreed to begin talks about its contribution to the costs of compensation. She will understand that we also need to wait for Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry to conclude, and for his recommendations regarding compensation from Fujitsu to be heard and understood. I am sure she will also understand that I am not going to give a running commentary on the discussions with Fujitsu, but I welcome the fact that it has agreed to begin talks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

One of the ingredients for a successful high street is having a post office in the mix. The Government have inherited a network of 11,500 post offices, and that number has been stable since 2010. Will the Minister commit to supporting high streets by maintaining the scale of the post office network in this Parliament?

[Gareth Thomas]

Yes, we are determined to maintain and, indeed, strengthen the post office network. I suspect that the hon. Member will recognise that we inherited a Post Office with huge problems, which we are working with the new leadership of the Post Office to begin to tackle. We are looking at what new commercial opportunities there may be for the Post Office, and banking appears to be the most significant one. We are also working with the Post Office to identify some of its infrastructure problems, not least in developing a replacement for the Horizon scheme.

Export and Investment Guarantees

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Harriett Baldwin

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

I welcome the opportunity to close the debate. I thank the hon. Members for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) and for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for their comments and questions, which I will try to answer before I make some final remarks about the statutory instruments.

The hon. Member for West Worcestershire asked if the UK Government support fair and free trade. I reconfirm our absolute commitment to supporting fair and free trade. We have made it very clear that trade is one of the key planks of the work of the Department. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security, reporting to the Secretary of State, is leading work on a trade White Paper, which we will bring forward in due course. I am sure the hon. Lady will see the Government’s commitment to fair and free trade reflected in that document.

As the hon. Lady knows, when we were in opposition, we supported accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. We are working to agree a number of free trade deals, for example with Switzerland, India and South Korea. She asked me about the trade envoys programme. We are sympathetic to such a programme continuing. We are looking at it closely, as she would expect, and we will bring forward an update to the House in due course.

The hon. Lady asked me about our views on trade with the United States. We recognise that the US is already a key export market for many British firms, and we want to look at all opportunities to increase trade with the US. I will come back to legislative reform more generally, but she is right to underline the message that we have to be on the side of wealth creators in this country if we want to see growth, more jobs and better pay for those in our communities. Winning export orders is fundamental to delivering growth, so a substantial amount of time in the Department is being spent thinking through what else we can do to support British businesses to win export orders overseas. UK Export Finance is one part, but not the only part, of that story, and we will bring forward our plans in due course.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I understand that Crawford Falconer, who had been in charge of a lot of the trade negotiations, is leaving the Department. Will the Minister tell the House what his plans are to fill that role?

[Gareth Thomas]

I pay tribute to Crawford Falconer for his work for the Department and the country. He has already fed into the work that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security is leading on the trade White Paper. Others in the Department are actively leading negotiations with a number of countries in support of our free trade negotiations and our ambitions for new free and fair trade agreements.

The hon. Lady asked me whether there is a need for further legislative reform to UK Export Finance. The Secretary of State has instructed UKEF officials to explore how we can increase the organisation’s overall financial capacity. That work is under way. We are committed to ensuring that UKEF can support British exporters now and into the future, but these statutory instruments are key in the short and medium term to helping it to continue to do its job.

The hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) gives me the opportunity to plug International Trade Week, which is taking place this week. I am glad to see that he at least has taken the advice that I wrote out for every Member of the House, encouraging them to reach out to exporters in their constituency, to support what they are doing already and to make them aware of further help that the UK Government could give them to win new export orders overseas. One message that we have sought to get across during International Trade Week is that we are absolutely committed to a reset in our trade relationship with the European Union. There is no doubt that the poor-quality trade deal with Europe that the previous Government negotiated has held back many British businesses from winning export orders in Europe. We need to reset the trade relationship with Europe in very practical terms. We committed, for example, to negotiating a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, and to exploring more opportunities for mutual recognition of professional qualifications. We see next year’s trade and co-operation agreement review as another opportunity to look at what we can do to reduce the difficulties that businesses face in trading with our nearest neighbours.

The Conservatives talked down the opportunities for British businesses to win export orders in our nearest overseas markets. That was a huge mistake; businesses have told us so. We are actively looking at what we can do to change that.

If the hon. Member for Wokingham gives any message to the representatives of the company that he is visiting tomorrow, let it be this: please encourage them to look again at Europe. We recognise that there are difficulties, but we want to work with business to sort them out, because we genuinely believe that there are real opportunities. He asked whether I would meet him and representatives from Wokingham businesses. I would be very happy to. In that spirit, I commend the draft orders to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Export and Investment Guarantees

Resolved,

That the draft Export and Investment Guarantees (Limit on Exports and Insurance Commitments) (No. 2) Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 14 October, be approved.

That the draft Export and Investment Guarantees (Limit on Exports and Insurance Commitments) (No. 3) Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 14 October, be approved.—(Martin McCluskey.)