Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thank the right hon. Member for making those powerful points, which reflect on the nature of the evidence that was given. One of his hon. Friends has already made the point about the role of technological, computer-based evidence in the legal process. To be frank, there is also the Post Office’s approach to the data as it saw it, which I assume it believed to be a way of unveiling wrongdoing, rather than questioning that data. Most of our constituents ask, “How could the number of convictions have gone from five or six a year to 50 or 60 without that being flagged in some way?” Clearly, the powers that be—at the time—thought the data was revealing wrongdoing, rather than necessarily revealing something going wrong.

We can see from the contributions we have already had that all Members participating in today’s debate and who will participate in the Bill’s future stages are mindful that what we are saying is not only important, but might be referenced in future considerations. In that vein, let me clearly state that this legislation, although far from ideal, is the only option on the table for us to resolve this horrible injustice. But let me further state that any incoming Labour Government would never use this kind of action again. There are exceptional circumstances to this case that make it unique, rather than it being a moment to set a precedent for handling any future injustices.

The Post Office Horizon scandal took place over decades, and there is at least a decade’s worth of investigations that demonstrate the falsehoods behind many of the convictions made against sub-postmasters. That bank of evidence will only grow from the independent inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams. The challenge to righting this wrong is not a lack of clear evidence, but a sheer volume of cases that is overwhelming the appropriate route to justice through the Court of Appeal. I lament that our justice system is under such strain, and it would be remiss of me not to point out that a better serviced Criminal Cases Review Commission could have avoided the extraordinary step that we must now take.

In addition, we must also recognise that a cohort of sub-postmasters with convictions are understandably reticent to take part in another process in a criminal justice system that so badly failed them the first time around. For the purposes of the historical record, an important qualification for taking this step is the scale of cross-party support that the legislation is attracting. I have raised that point with the Minister before, and I believe it to be an essential safeguard.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

May I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his cross-party and collaborative approach, which has brought us a significant step forward? I recognise the points he makes on the scale of the problem, which is why we have to act in this way. It is probably the least worst option for how we deal with this.

May I push back gently on his point that we have only started to act significantly since the TV drama? We welcome the public outcry that came as a result of the drama, the new attention that has been focused on the issue and the 1,200 new claimants who have stepped forward, but I push back because it is important that the public know that we were acting prior to the drama. We implemented the shortfall scheme in 2020, the inquiry back in 2020 and the GLO compensation scheme in 2021. The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board was put in place early in 2023, and the fixed-sum awards of £600,000 were put in place in autumn last year. We also had the overturned convictions and the exploring of different ways to do that on a mass basis. All these things were in place by the time of the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024, which we considered in December last year, and which the shadow Secretary of State and I spoke to during its consideration. Much work has been undertaken. We very much welcome the new impetus we have all got from the attention that the drama has brought about.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am always keen to hear from the Minister. I thought I was fair in making the point he raises in my introductory remarks. I simply make the point that the constitutional significance of legislation like this requires a level of public consent. The statement that the Prime Minister made in January, just after Prime Minister’s questions, would not have been possible without the sheer breakthrough in public consent and the demand for change and for justice that came from that. I will always be fair to the Government’s Ministers, and I point out even to some of their critics that we were dealing with things. We had the legislation that colleagues had worked on. It is fair to say there was less interest in some of that in the Chamber before we had the television programme, but let us be frank that we had the impasse of people not wanting to go back to the process. The estimate we had at the time was 10 to 15 years. That is what brought us to that point, and we have to recognise that, as well as paying tribute to the role that arts and culture can play in bringing things to an audience, which we should welcome.

Finally, I think I speak for everyone in the Chamber when I say that in no way does anyone take lightly what we are proposing to do today. This action is unprecedented, and we should make every effort possible to ensure that such action never again has to be considered.

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[Marion Fellows]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am surrounded by lawyerly people and I am not a lawyer. In fact, I sat in a room last night for a briefing where I was surrounded by lawyers and even the lawyers were agreeing that they could not agree on the right way forward. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and the Scottish Government will do that, but they cannot do it until we see what happens with the Bill as it is brought towards enactment and until we can take into consideration all the amendments that may be necessary for Northern Ireland. That will create a delay. Yes, the Scottish Government can—I cannot say they will, because I am not a Member of the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Government—and it is possible for the Scottish Parliament to pass a Bill in three days, but it must be aligned with the exoneration Bill passed here. Otherwise, Scottish victims will not be treated equitably and fairly.

On 10 January, the Minister spoke in this place to, I believe, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) and said he saw no reason at that point why there could not be UK legislation. At an Interministerial Standing Committee on 12 March, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said that he saw no reason why that could not happen. Yet a few days after that the Bill arrived in Scotland with no mention of Scotland at all. It is the Scottish Government’s belief that the Bill could be amended to take into consideration the differences in legal terms. For example, amendments would be needed to bring about alignment on embezzlement and to cover all the different crimes, if you like—well, not crimes, because the sub-postmasters did nothing wrong—so that the Bill would apply in Scotland. The Bill could clear the decks of all the things sub-postmasters were charged with and convicted for, so it is all possible. The issue is one of timing, with sub-postmasters in Scotland being told, “Okay, you’ve waited, but you’ll have to wait longer.”

In this place, and right across the work I have done over the past few years on the Post Office, there has always been cross-party agreement on getting things sorted out for the victims. As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said, that is the point of the whole thing. It is about the victims. It is about what has happened since “Mr Bates vs the Post Office” was broadcast. I sat with my daughter-in-law, who is herself a lawyer—I don’t hold that against her—and she kept saying, “Is this true, Marion? Is this true?” and I had to say that yes, it was.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Lady once again for the all the work she does. As I have said to her on a number of occasions, our officials are working together on a weekly basis and I have met my counterparts in Scotland on this issue. She will acknowledge that the UK Parliament is taking a political risk. This is unprecedented and unpopular in some quarters. Does she not accept that, as politicians, there are times when we have to stand up and accept the political responsibility and accountability for doing the right thing in our own jurisdictions, just in the way the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said?

[Marion Fellows]

I agree with the Minister—of course I do—but let us think back to the victims. Scottish victims should not have to wait any longer than victims across the rest of the United Kingdom. If the Scottish Government were to expedite a Bill in the Scottish Parliament without knowing exactly where this Bill will end up—already today there has been talk of amendments to it to help Northern Ireland—then that would not be right either.

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[Paul Scully]

I did not, but the issue is worth looking at. This is a human scandal, and it is not just about the postmasters who were directly affected. I am not sure how we start to unpick that as it gets wider and wider, but I hope and trust that the Government will reflect on it as we do the wider learning.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I was tempted to intervene on two of the interventions I heard, but that is impossible here. It is certainly possible that the person who had the contractual relationship with the business concerned, such as a small post office, could submit a claim to the Horizon shortfall scheme, which could include amounts that should be paid to individuals who worked for them so that they can be compensated through that route.

Given that we are looking at public sector or quasi-public sector organisations, it would be dangerous to assume that there is a problem with governance. As my hon. Friend said, from the Back Benches I dealt with a number of scandals that involved private sector organisations, such as Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland—we saw years of obfuscation around similar kinds of problems. We should not jump to conclusions. We should probably let the inquiry report first, and have a debate from there.

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. To follow on from the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, it is difficult for us as parliamentarians, and doubly difficult for Government Ministers, to speak with authority on behalf of a public organisation—rather than the private sector, which we do not speak on behalf of—without necessarily having all the facts, because there is only so much we can drill into.

Obviously, we want to right the wrongs of the past and make sure as best we can that the people’s situations are restored so that they can have a future for themselves and their families. There is also the case of the Post Office itself. The Post Office still has more branches than the banks and building societies put together. I know that there have been closures in certain areas—that is a whole other debate, perhaps for Westminster Hall—but none the less, the Post Office has a massive impact on people’s lives, especially in rural communities. We must not forget that when we are looking at the Post Office, its brand and its overall aim. This is not a reflection on the current management or anything like that. We have to give the Post Office a future.

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[Mr Jones]

They were hiding, yes, because of shame and things such as that. It is only now that we realise what a massive miscarriage of justice this was that people have had the confidence to come forward. This Bill will help with that.

I shall come off Capture, because I think the Minister has got my point, but I return to those cases that have already gone to appeal. I do not criticise the Government on this, but we must find a system for dealing with those few cases that have gone through. It is no good the Court of Appeal hiding behind the fact that they have gone through, because, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam has said, new evidence has come out of the inquiry that was not available to the courts at the time. We cannot just leave those people hanging—I cannot remember off the top of my head how many individuals there are, but there are not that many.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Let me just clarify that point. A total of 1,200 people have come forward since the TV dramatisation. Seven people have taken their case to the Court of Appeal and been heard, and six have been refused leave to appeal, which makes a total of 13 in that cohort.

[Mr Jones]

What a fine research assistant the Minister is! He is right: the number is in single figures. Let us look at those cases. Let us see whether we can move forward on this. I am not criticising the Government for not including those individuals. I understand why they are not in the Bill, but we need to look at them. There are things that came out of the inquiry that would have changed the outcome in some, but perhaps not all, of those cases. If we do not look at them, those people will be left outside the remit of the Bill.

On the territorial extent of the Bill, I think the case was made earlier in relation to Northern Ireland. I see no reason why the Bill should not include Northern Ireland. We have cross-party support for it in Northern Ireland, and, as I understand it, the Executive are on board as well. We need to recognise that in Committee. I have to say to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) that I have less sympathy with the idea of including Scotland in the Bill. Not because those individuals should not get justice—they should—but because the issue is different in Scotland. There are, in fact, two issues. First, there is the legal position: the way things are prosecuted in Scotland is very different from how it is done in the UK. Furthermore, there is a mechanism to do it, so the Scottish Government just have to get on and do it. I accept what she is saying about waiting to see what we do, but they would need cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament if that were to go forward. I do hope, however, that some amendment on Northern Ireland is brought forward in Committee, and I would certainly support it.

Finally, let me talk about the notification of individuals. Reference was made earlier to record keeping, which was not brilliant at the Post Office. We have to try to find “reasonable steps”, as the Bill says, to notify individuals. We need to look at that, because, again, some of these cases will be legacy cases. Sadly, some people will have passed away before they were able to get justice. Perhaps we need to say how we get to those cases that are possibly more difficult to get to than others.

To conclude, the Bill is long overdue, which makes this a historic day. I think of the woman I sat in front of in her council flat in the north-east of England, whose life has been ruined for the past 20 years, and who has had daily trauma because of the injustice and financial heartache that she and her family have faced. With the Bill, she will finally get justice; if that is the one thing I do in my time in this House, it will make me very happy.

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[Mr Carmichael]

I do not think it is unfortunate, but highly fortunate and deliberate, that we are in the UK, but we will save that debate for another day. The compensation can and will be paid on a UK-wide basis. Given the timescale that the Government have outlined so far, we would expect the convictions to be quashed on the basis of this Bill by the middle of July. That gives the Scottish Parliament time to meet the same timescales, so that victims in Scotland have their cases quashed by that time.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some important points about the way the prosecution systems work in different parts of the UK, which we must take into account. On the point by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) on paying redress, the key thing is overturning the conviction. Once that conviction is overturned, wherever in the UK, that individual will have immediate access to the redress scheme wherever they are in the UK. There is no hiatus, as he described it.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am grateful to the Minister for that. Those who are not convicted will have access to compensation through the historic shortfall scheme—a process available to them at the moment.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The Bill relates only to overturning convictions. There is a discussion about territorial extent, which I understand and am happy to continue to discuss. The three compensation schemes—the Horizon shortfall scheme, the group litigation order scheme and the overturned conviction scheme—are all UK-wide, so that whatever detriment is experienced, wherever they are in the UK, there is no delay to compensation. There is no difference, in terms of compensation, between one part of the UK and another. We are keen to expedite it wherever it is in the UK and we have work to do.

[Mr Carmichael]

I do not really need to answer that, so I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

For Members of the House, the wider public and, most of all, the victims of this horrendous scandal, today’s Bill cannot come soon enough. The day that the convictions are finally quashed, redress is finally paid and those victims can get on with their lives cannot come soon enough. The Bill will quash relevant convictions of individuals who worked, including on a voluntary basis, in post office branches and who suffered as a consequence of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. It will quash, on a blanket basis, convictions for various theft, fraud and related offences during the period of the Horizon scandal in England and Wales.

The Bill is an exceptional response that recognises the constitutional sensitivity and unprecedented nature of the situation. The Government are clear that given the factually exceptional nature of the case, the legislation does not set a precedent for the future relationship between the Executive, Parliament and the judiciary. The scale and circumstances of the prosecutorial and investigatory misconduct means that a rapid approach is needed to deliver long overdue justice, while respecting the separation of powers and delicate constitutional balance.

I first spoke on the matter from the Back Benches some years ago, in the context of other scandals involving the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank, after a gentleman called Paul Marshall, a barrister involved in the cases, wrote to me drawing parallels between the Post Office Horizon case and the banking scandal. It was back in March 2020 that I first spoke about the issue and Lee Castleton’s tragic case. Because of the scale of the injustice, the depth of the damage and the despair, and the unacceptable delays in delivering justice, we must act in this exceptional manner.

I will touch on points raised in contributions to the debate. I thank the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), for their collaborative approach. I join them in thanking one of my predecessors, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), on the tremendous job he did. We all wish him well in whatever he chooses to do in his new life, but I remind him that he still has work to do in this place because we have much work to do.

I gently push back on some of the points made by the shadow Minister, who said that the TV drama had stimulated the work that has gone on in recent weeks and today. We are public servants and we should respond to public outcry, so I welcome the new attention focused on the issue by the general public, the media and the House. However, I remind hon. Members and, most importantly, the victims that we put many measures in place to try to deal with the matter, not always as successfully or as quickly as we would have liked: the Horizon shortfall scheme and the inquiry, which started in 2020; the group litigation order compensation scheme; the Horizon compensation advisory board, on which the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) sits so effectively; and the £600,000 fixed-sum awards for those whose convictions had been overturned, which was put in place last autumn. The exploration into how we might overturn convictions more quickly began some months before the TV dramatisation came to our screens. Indeed, the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024 assigned a deadline date that proved difficult for some of the victims.

The shadow Secretary of State pointed to possible service level agreements, in response to issues raised by the Business and Trade Committee about timings for compensation. As he and the shadow Minister know, there are service level agreements in the current compensation and the group litigation order compensation schemes that say there will be a response to 90% of final claims submitted within 40 days. We are hitting 87% against that metric, so we are making progress. We are considering such agreements in elements of the new scheme and other schemes, so I will come back to the House about that.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde raised the point about Northern Ireland, as many other Members have, and we are taking that very seriously. We are sympathetic to the issue, particularly as the Assembly is newly formed. The requirement for public consultations in that jurisdiction may delay things, and we will bear that in mind in our deliberations.

The shadow Minister quite rightly raised the point about the impact of this not just on the victims, but on the victims’ families, their children and their spouses. Indeed, terrible things have happened to many of those families, including break-ups and suicides. We have all witnessed on our TV screens the extent of this problem. We will certainly consider mental health support for the affected individuals.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) talked about a sunset clause. Interestingly, following his intervention on a sunset clause, three other legal opinions on a similar matter did not all agree with his point. The key thing is that all convictions are quashed the day this legislation comes into effect, which should be in July. Irrespective of the fact that we may not have identified somebody in the list of people whom we will write to following the passing of this Bill, their conviction will have been quashed. If they come forward to self-certify and we look at their case, that conviction will have already been quashed; we just need to mark the record.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) spoke about political accountability, which I shall come back to a bit later, because he raises some very important points. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr David Davis) said that this matter should have been dealt with in the courtroom. I think that we would all have preferred to see that. I have described this process in the past as the lesser of two evils. We must acknowledge that the first of the 983 convictions were overturned in 2021. Thus far, only 102 convictions have been overturned. That pace of progress cannot be countenanced, which is why we have taken this particular approach. I thank him, though, for his kind words on my work, but I reiterate that the Secretary of State has been hugely supportive of everything that I have been asked to do and that I wanted to do in this space. The same applies to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and many other Ministers right across Government.

Let me turn now to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), for whom I have a great deal of time and with whom I have spent a great deal of time working on this issue. Her work on the all-party group on post offices is also invaluable. I fully understand her points about Scotland. She wants to ensure that her legislation works simultaneously with this legislation. We believe that that can happen in Scotland. There are no barriers as such with Scotland in the way that there are potentially with Northern Ireland. We also must bear in mind that the Lord Advocate tends to have a different opinion as to whether this is the right way to go about things. In taking this route, we have had to make some difficult political choices. One is to exclude cases that have been heard by the Court of Appeal. That is the decision that we had to take here—as I say, these were very difficult choices. The point about political accountability is important, which is why we decided to use this objective criteria route. The hon. Lady’s objective criteria would have to be different. For instance, Scotland has a different prosecutorial system, so the legislation cannot be identical. There are differences whichever way we look at this, so I am sure that this debate will continue.

[Ian Paisley]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He knows that we have huge admiration for the way that he has tried to wrestle his way through these issues. At the end of these proceedings, I intend to lay an instruction to the House motion. Is that necessary? Can the Minister tell us now that he will take this on and include Northern Ireland in the Bill?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I understand the hon. Member’s point. I can tell him from this Dispatch Box that it is something on which we will continue to have dialogue. I have talked to his colleagues today and yesterday. In fact, I met the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Justice Minister yesterday to discuss these matters. They raised some interesting points that we need to take into account. I am very happy to keep those conversations ongoing, so I will happily have a further conversation with him after this debate.

[Chris Stephens]

The Minister is showing his customary politeness and kindness. He has outlined the discussions with Northern Ireland. The main issue is how we get a solution that satisfies everyone across these islands, so will he also have those discussions with the Scottish Government, particularly around the territorial issue, and will he say something about Asda employees in Scotland who are also caught up in this?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I absolutely give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We want everything to happen simultaneously. Our ambition is to get the legislation passed by July. If people choose the fixed sum award route, we can pay compensation rapidly. They have two choices of route to take. The £600,000 can be delivered very quickly—literally within weeks of passing the legislation. We want to pass the legislation by July; we could be paying compensation as quickly as by August. Exactly the same thing can happen in Scotland if the Scottish Government effect the legislation at the same pace. My officials are working with officials of the SNP-led Government in Scotland on a weekly basis to try to ensure that that is the case. I have met with my counterpart in the Scottish Government to talk about this issue.

I did not quite get the hon. Gentleman’s point about employees. He might want to intervene on me again, so I can address it properly.

[Chris Stephens]

A number of Members have mentioned, as I have, the particular issue of Asda employees in Scotland. Has the Minister thought about that?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Employees generally are an issue, because they do not have a contractual relationship with the Post Office, which is required to enter the compensation scheme, but if the company itself did have one it could make a compensation claim that could then be passed on to that individual. I am very happy to discuss individual cases with the hon. Gentleman, or with other Members.

I pay tribute again to all the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam. I agree that this was a case of human failure as well as technological failure, and that the wheels of justice are moving too slowly. That is why we have stepped in in this way. I am always grateful for the work of the right hon. Member for North Durham, not least on the Horizon compensation advisory board. He has made some important recommendations, which we have adopted. He gave a four-legged analogy about the person I am: he called me more shire horse than show pony, which I take as a compliment. I would describe him in a four-legged way as well: he is a cross between a terrier and a rottweiler, and he is highly effective in the way he approaches this issue.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about convictions relating to pilot versions of Horizon. That is why we have set the date at 23 December 1996. That is the first point of the roll-out of an application called Pathway, which was a predecessor Horizon application. We think that the legislation, and therefore the redress schemes, capture—if I can use that word—cases that relate to the pilot schemes in clause 8.

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we look at the Capture system slightly differently. Capture is a stand-alone spreadsheet rather than a network computer system. There is no remote access, for example. The key thing is that what we are doing here is exceptional and unprecedented. We have the body of evidence because it has been before a court. Part of the reason the court made its decision in 2019 was based on the Horizon issues, as it put it. We do not have that body of evidence with Capture. We are keen to talk to him to ensure that we look at the evidence. That conversation will continue.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the power to make consequential provision. We do not see that as giving us the ability to include another group of people; there are different reasons why that power is in the Bill. It is for matters that are a consequence of the Bill, which we do not think is the right vehicle to include people, for example, who have been affected by the Capture system. As I say, we will continue to discuss that.

As I said earlier, we understand the arguments about Northern Ireland, and we will continue to engage, as we will with other Members of this House. In terms of reasonable steps, the process is in development. It is about marking the records and writing to individuals. When we have passed the legislation, we will write literally that day, or the next day, to those individuals to say, “You’re conviction has been quashed,” and we will give them details about how to claim compensation.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I know that the Minister is committed to ensuring that everyone is contacted. What about the legacy cases—when people have passed away? Will someone try to contact their estates, for example?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Those are challenging issues. The key thing—I hope the right hon. Gentleman takes this in the right way—is that what we are doing here to quash convictions does not require people to come forward. When the conviction has been quashed, we will contact the most relevant person in that context. Those people can take forward a claim in exactly the same way, and it will be considered in exactly the same way, as any other claim. The estate, the families, can claim compensation.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with the Minister, but I think this needs to be given some thought. Perhaps the advisory board might look at legacy cases in which people have passed away, because those entitled to compensation might not come forward. We might have further discussion about that.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very happy for us to look at that, and to work with the right hon. Gentleman and the advisory board. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to him, Lord Arbuthnot, Sir Chris Hodges, and Professor Richard Moorhead for their work in this area. We will continue to work closely alongside the right hon. Gentleman.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) recognised the work of people other than me on this matter—not least the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. I recognise that he is the only serving postmaster in this place, so we always listen carefully to what he says. Like him, we encourage people to come forward to claim compensation.

The people not included in the legislation—those who have been convicted as a result of prosecution by the DWP—can still appeal in the normal way, and I encourage them to do so if they feel that there are grounds for that. My hon. Friend asked about Fujitsu and the quantum it is due to pay. Our view has always been that we should let the inquiry conclude and determine responsibility. We will then know the extent of the compensation bill, and that will be the right time to have a conversation about contributions, for which Fujitsu has already accept a moral responsibility; we welcome that. Although the Post Office has had a chequered past in this regard, I believe that it has a very bright future, and we are keen to ensure that it does. We should always keep that in mind.

I understand what the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said about the territorial extent of the Bill. As I said, I met the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and the Minster of Justice for Northern Ireland yesterday, and I will continue to do so. We are determined to ensure that measures are brought forward as quickly as possible in all areas of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Member makes a compelling case about the need for public consultations in his jurisdiction. We are aware of that. There are 26 cases in Northern Ireland, and we are keen to ensure that they are overturned as quickly as possible. We will continue work to ensure that that happens.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland talked clearly about ensuring that prosecutors are accountable for their role. Decisions were taken in Scotland. He was right to say clearly that a legislative consent motion does not offer the same level of parliamentary accountability, and I think we should all reflect on that. His final words were “accountability makes a difference.”

The hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) talked about his preference for the measures to be UK-wide. We understand that; we have had several conversations and will have many more, I am sure. I understand his point about the risks of judicial review and of delays to public consultation. He feels that he makes an overwhelming argument. We will keep those conversations going.

I concur with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, and echo her tribute to Alan Bates, Jo Hamilton, Lee Castleton, journalist Nick Wallis, campaigner Dan Neidle, another journalist Tom Witherow, Lord Arbuthnot, Karl Flinders and many others, including many Members of this House. We pay tribute to them for their work. We recognise the profound impacts that the Horizon scandal has had on those who were falsely accused. It has taken too long to get to this point, and our ambition is to get this legislation through both Houses by July and compensation paid to the victims by August. Through this Bill, we will exonerate those who were so unjustly convicted of crimes that they did not commit and provide fair redress as swiftly as possible. I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.