Post Office Mediation Scheme

Ian Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) for securing this debate. I cannot believe that this is his first Adjournment debate after 28 years of distinguished service in the House. It is probably better late than never given the content of his speech. I wish him well when he goes on to other things after May.

I am disturbed by what we have heard this afternoon. I have been involved in the matter since the Minister made her statement to the House last year, but we have heard troubling stories about people having their lives turned completely upside down through no fault of their own. I was particularly concerned by the story of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who will be a fantastic new leading Member for the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, about his constituent, Tom Brown. He gave 30 years’ service to the Post Office, but he has now lost his home and lives with his son and has been declared bankrupt after losing more than £250,000, which has been described by the Post Office as a lifestyle choice. I hope that Post Office representatives, who will be watching this debate, will reflect on the stories that Members have described today and do something about this.

At the statement last year, I made the point that we welcomed the fact that the Post Office had recognised that there were problems with the Horizon system. At that point, it seemed that the Post Office would do something about it. Since then, however, nothing has been done. Like everyone else, I have in front of me the letter from Sir Anthony Hooper, the chair of the working group, the reverse of which details how the 150 cases have been progressing over the past few months. The information seems incomplete, and it would be useful to hear about the conclusions in the seven cases that have been mediated. Was it found that the Horizon system was incorrect? Was it found that the sub-postmaster lacked training or support? The conclusions and information need to be reflected back, perhaps privately, to the Minister and the working group.

I was struck by the contributions of the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood), who made the point that the Post Office’s contracts mean that sub-postmasters are completely responsible for any losses incurred. There is no carrot and stick approach in stealing from one’s own business. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, sub-postmasters would be robbing Peter to pay Peter because their contracts mean that they are completely responsible for the losses incurred.

The Second Sight report came up with some preliminary conclusions that are worth reflecting on in the context of today’s debate. It found no evidence of system-wide problems, which causes me a great deal of concern because we continually hear about significant issues, which may point to deeper problems in the system if the professionals cannot find major problems. It found two incidents where defects or bugs in the Horizon software gave rise to losses of some £9,000 in 76 branches. It mentioned individual postmaster experiences when reporting problems and the lack of support and of a user forum. It described a lack of an outreach investigations function within the Post Office to investigate problems. It also mentioned problems with the trading period and the process for transactional corrections and that there was no “suspense account” option, which made it difficult for transactional corrections to be dealt with in a neutral manner.

I am concerned by the language used in this interim report. Conclusions have been made, but we continue to hear about the significant problems experienced by sub-postmasters up and down the country. We must also reflect on the fact that the Post Office was encouraging postmasters to break the law on accounting. Asking someone to allocate accounting to a different period in order to make up losses is creative accountancy.

More than 144 Members have supported the campaign. The right hon. Member for North East Hampshire has written to the Post Office to say that he has no confidence that the Post Office board is committed to finding a fair solution to this particular problem. The Post Office board must reflect on that, but the Minister has a role to play here. I agree with the hon. Member for North Durham that she must get a hold of the situation and find a conclusion to it. The more it goes on, the more we will hear of sub-postmasters ending up in prison or declaring guilt for something that they have not done in order to avoid a custodial sentence. That is not how justice works in this country and it is not how justice should be seen to be working.

I want to pose several questions to the Minister, and I will sit down early to allow her time to respond to the significant questions that have been asked during the debate. First, what is her response to the letter to the Post Office from the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire about the cases that were recommended for mediation by Second Sight? Can she confirm that that is happening? If so, what is the solution?

Secondly, what discussions has the Minister had with the Post Office about cases that have been refused mediation and where the sub-postmaster involved has previously pleaded guilty to allegations of impropriety? When people have been given custodial sentences or criminal records, those cases must be looked at seriously.

Thirdly, will the Minister take urgent action to resolve not only the outstanding cases, which we can see in the letter from the chair of the working group, but the cases described by hon. Members that have arisen since the closing date of the mediation scheme?

Fourthly, will the Minister address the JFSA’s loss of confidence in the Post Office system, as highlighted in the letter from the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire?

Fifthly, what discussions has the Minister had with the Post Office and the prosecution services regarding the prosecution of sub-postmasters? Will she make a statement to the House regarding that?

Finally, do the Government have any further concerns regarding not only the Post Office’s handling of the matter, but the Horizon system?

We must reflect on the horrendous worst-case scenarios that we have heard from hon. Members. I plead with the Minister really to get a hold of the matter, to answer Members’ concerns, to do justice for the many hard-working sub-postmasters up and down the country who feel that they can no longer have confidence that things are being dealt with correctly and to ensure that such issues do not occur again.