Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his opening remarks, not least for their tone, which this House has always got right. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti—except for her suggestion that this should be called the Arbuthnot Act. She made the very important point about blanket exoneration. We must not force these traumatised people back before the courts that did them such injury. I am grateful also to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for his important remarks about auditors, who have escaped much scrutiny. Maybe that will change in the coming weeks and months.

I declare my interest as a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. I put my name down for this debate intending to use this speech to call on the Government to announce the wholesale exoneration of all those convicted as a result of Post Office evidence since the introduction of Horizon. I thank the Prime Minister for making that unnecessary, which will shorten this speech dramatically. He has been well supported and motivated in this by the excellent Post Office Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, and his formidable team. I shall not in this Second Reading debate succumb to the temptation to travel widely beyond the contents of this Bill, which is very short. I have spent the last week trespassing far too much on people’s patience, on TV and radio and in the newspapers. I apologise for that and feel—

[Noble Lords]

No!

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

I feel a little talked out. That too, your Lordships will be pleased to hear, will shorten this speech dramatically.

This Bill is with us at the request of the chairman of the public inquiry to ensure that the Government do not run out of time to pay compensation or, as Alan Bates has often said, to give redress. He says that it is redress rather than compensation because this is money that the Government owe the sub-postmasters; some of it is money which has always, in law, belonged to the sub-postmasters. Let us acknowledge that point and move on.

The name of the Bill is the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill, which suggests that it is about a faulty computer system. But this dreadful story only started as a story about a faulty computer system. It became something else, as we have seen from the evidence at the public inquiry: it became a matter of human behaviour; of oppressive contracts; of Post Office investigators prioritising asset recovery over justice; of useless helplines with Post Office and Fujitsu staff telling sub-postmasters that they were the only people suffering these problems and then telling them to do things which made matters worse; of senior managers at the Post Office and possibly, although I do not know, Fujitsu, lying about what their technical staff could do by way of remote access; of Ministers of all parties failing to exercise the responsibilities of ownership; and of the courts ignoring the requirements of justice in order to accommodate the most trusted brand in the country. The background of this saga was a computer system, but compensation, as we have heard from the public inquiry, is payable in respect of so much more. So, frankly, I do not much like the name of this Bill, but having questioned its name, I shall move on to its substance.

Money is to be payable to compensate people affected by the Horizon system, or to compensate persons in respect of other matters identified in High Court judgments. The expectation at the beginning of the group litigation was that it would be split into five different cases. Because the Post Office—I assume with the backing of the Government, although we shall find that out soon—decided to spend the sub-postmasters into submission with taxpayer-funded litigation, the sub-postmasters were forced, as we saw in the drama, to settle after only two of those cases had been decided. The consequence was that many issues were left undecided. Does the Bill cover these issues?

What about issues arising out of the public inquiry, rather than out of High Court judgments? We have been listening over the past few days to some pretty dreadful stories of behaviour by the Post Office investigators, who have been confronted with their bullying behaviour. We have heard the evidence from Duncan Atkinson KC about the shortcomings of the Post Office prosecutors and their prosecutions. I hope that these issues will be covered by the Bill as well as what has come out of the High Court judgments.

I feel a bit churlish, frankly, attacking both the name and the contents of a Bill that I welcome, but I do welcome the idea that the Government should not run out of time to pay the redress that we as taxpayers—with the help of Fujitsu, now that it has recognised its moral obligation; I hope that soon it will recognise its legal obligation to contribute to the cost—owe to the sub-postmasters. The very fact that it should be necessary to have the Bill in the first place suggests that the three compensation schemes have been slow and bureaucratic —and they have been. We must get a move on and do our utmost to make sure that the Bill is not, in the event, needed, because full compensation, or redress, is paid before August.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I commend my colleague the Postal Minister Mr Hollinrake for pushing through hard on the £600,000 because it is not for us to judge what any individual has lost; it is up to that individual claimant to make the decision about whether they want to go through the due legal process. The word “compensation” has perhaps been misapplied here. What we are actually talking about is a monetary sum to be given back which gives redress to individuals. In any particular case—for example, the case of Lee Castleton—it may well be that one can actually identify separate buckets, one of which might in fact be court costs be repaid, but within the overall settlement there will be an amount which should take account of all losses. If you have paid for someone else’s legal fees, that is a loss which needs to be repaid, so this will be tied up within each individual claim, the point being that if you do not as a postmaster want to go through the heartache and process of doing that, there is a route for you to receive a substantial sum and you can close the matter and get on with the rest of your life.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

I would not want anyone to be confused in an already confusing situation. The £600,000 is not actually relevant to Lee Castleton because it is a sum that applies only to those who have overturned convictions. Lee Castleton was sued rather than prosecuted. I am sure he will get a lot more than that, which will include the legal costs that he had to pay and also all the issues about the bankruptcy that he went through and the horrors his family went through, and he will deserve a lot more than that.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that clarification.

Moving onto another theme, there has obviously been a lot of comment on Fujitsu and we have all been horrified by the extent of what would appear to be its collusion in the matter. Again, we have to be very careful here to allow this inquiry to run its course. Sir Wyn Williams is very focused on this, and he will get it done through the course of this year. We will get answers to these questions.

Sir Wyn has been very clear, as indeed has Minister Hollinrake in the other place, that the cost of this must not fall solely on the taxpayer. We have now had the statement today from the European chief executive, effectively putting his hand up to say that he knows there is going to be a large bill to pay, and that it goes beyond moral to legal and financial. Again, that will be determined when we get through the inquiry.

The reality is that Fujitsu is embedded in all aspects of government, in many departments. We all feel nervous about that at this moment and I am sure that all departments will be reviewing that; but, again, we have to discover the extent of culpability. The company knows that it will have a large bill to pay. We have to allow that process to run its course. I am sure that there will be full accountability and from that—there is no question my mind—will cascade many levels of scrutiny of that company in every government department. I think we will be hearing more about that as we go.

The other theme brought through was governance of the Post Office. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was very clear in asking how this works in respect of being a limited company with a board. The noble Lords, Lord Palmer and Lord Sikka, mentioned the whole accounting scenario. With respect to the current governance of the Post Office, it remains an arm’s-length statutory body; we are all now asking different questions about how that works.