Post Office Historical Shortfall Scheme Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Post Office Historical Shortfall Scheme
Jim Shannon Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Carmichael
Yes, of course, although there would not be a cost to the Post Office, because there is only one shareholder—the Secretary of State—so it would ultimately come to the taxpayer. I will touch on that in a few minutes.
Jim Shannon
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It was not just the fact that the system let people down. It was the mental and physical health issues that people suffered as a result. Some of them ended their lives early, experienced illness or depression, or lost all they had. The implications of all this go far beyond the system.
Mr Carmichael
Absolutely. Indeed, as I will come to in a few minutes, my constituent Elena Kimmett, who was for many years the sub-postmistress in Stromness, illustrates truth better than anyone else I can think of.
I thought the question about culture was perhaps just me being a grumpy guy after a bad meeting, as I can occasionally be, but I had a recent lengthy discussion with the National Federation of SubPostmasters. In correspondence to me, the federation put it in the following terms:
“The culture of the Post Office of today and tomorrow must be significantly different to that of the past. In a recent survey of Postmasters conducted by the NFSP, only 29% believe they are being listened to by Post Office today. In terms of resetting the relationship between Post Office and the network, Postmasters gave Post Office a score of 5 out of 10 for their progress so far.”
The executive director with responsibility for the historical shortfall scheme, Declan Salter, was left in a position in July this year where the Post Office board did not renew his contract, and it has still not been renewed. I would like to hear about that from the Minister, either today or in due course in correspondence. It has left the administration of the scheme rudderless. We need to know the intentions of the board. If it is not going to renew the contract of the person it put in charge of the scheme, it should at least come forward and tell us what it intends to do instead.
Throughout this whole sorry affair, the strategy of the Post Office has been to use public money to outgun the sub-postmasters. The settlement with the sub-postmasters was forced on them by the Post Office. That is in the context of the Post Office knowing, by 2013 at the latest, that many of the convictions were unsafe.