Post Office Horizon System

Debate between Lord Beamish and Emma Lewell-Buck

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) on securing this debate.

My constituent Tom Brown, a postmaster for 30 years, had a post office in Newcastle. In 2008, he informed the Post Office that there was a problem with his Horizon system, and it took away one of his base units to change it. He was told by the helpline—a euphemism because it has not been very helpful to many sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters and has actually got them into more trouble—that the system would rectify itself. It did not. The next audit said that his figures were down by £85,000. He was arrested by Northumbria police, and his car and home were searched. Subsequently, the police dropped all charges as there was no evidence against him. Then, for some unknown reason, the Post Office took out a prosecution against him to take him to court for false accounting. That process took until July 2013, when he finally appeared in court for the third time. No evidence was put forward to the court, and after that the case was dropped.

This man has lost his home, his livelihood and his good reputation. He is one of the individuals who have gone through the mediation system, even though, as the hon. Gentleman outlined, the system is a sham. He was given four different dates that were all delayed. He described this to me as six hours of wasted time. The Post Office employed top lawyers from Newcastle to represent it. It again went through what it said was the evidence, and made no offer at all. The system is a sham. As the hon. Gentleman outlined, it has been a way of delaying decisions on these cases.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Post Office has failed to be transparent about this process? My constituent, Mrs Carter, a sub-postmistress, asked the Post Office to audit her branch to get to the bottom of the problem, but it refused to do so.

[Mr Jones]

I will go further than that. It has not only not been transparent; it has gone out of its way to delay cases and hide evidence.

My concern about the work done by Second Sight is that it suggests that if information is returned to the Post Office, evidence will go missing. That is why I totally agree with the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire that there needs to be an independent judicial inquiry into this—as he described it—national scandal. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), the new Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, is present for this debate. I urge him and his Committee to look at this as a matter of urgency.

The fundamental point is this: who controls the Post Office? This organisation is out of control. It has led to people’s lives being ruined and, as we have heard, in some cases to people being given prison sentences when clearly they are innocent. It is important that we get to the bottom of this. Without a judicial inquiry, I fear that this national scandal will continue and these people’s reputations will continue to be blackened.