Post Office: Horizon Compensation

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the £685m set aside for the Post Office Historical Matters Compensation scheme will cover those claimants involved in the litigation who were not convicted or prosecuted, as well as sub-postmasters whose convictions have been overturned.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have indeed set aside up to £685 million to support the Post Office in paying compensation to postmasters with quashed Horizon-related convictions. The Post Office reached a settlement to pay compensation of £42.75 million, plus costs, in 2019 with a further group of postmasters. The Post Office has separately set up a historical shortfall scheme to provide compensation to postmasters who suffered Horizon-related losses but were not convicted or prosecuted and were not part of the GLO.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, Fujitsu knew that it could—and did—alter the accounts of sub-postmasters without their knowledge. It knew that the Government were denying that this could be done. It knew that the sub-postmasters were being prosecuted for those altered accounts. Is it not high time, and beyond, that Fujitsu began to become part of the solution rather than being part of the problem?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point, with which I know many in the House will have some sympathy, but it is important that we await the outcome of Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry. We all have our suspicions about this and we all have our views, but the inquiry has been set up to provide us with definitive answers to questions such as the very good one that the noble Lord has posed.