Post Office: Horizon

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his praise for me, but it is slightly unjust; it is the Minister for Small Business who is responsible for the Post Office and is putting in the hard yards on this issue, and I will certainly pass on the noble Lord’s commendations.

I have considerable sympathy for the view that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, outlines. A public inquiry is taking place and that is the proper place for blame to be apportioned. We all have our suspicions and views, but let us wait for the outcome of the inquiry to see exactly where fault lies—whether with Ministers, officials, Post Office executives, Fujitsu or whoever—and then we can take the appropriate action.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pity that my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot cannot be here today because we all owe him an enormous amount for his work. That should be firmly on the record. My noble friend Lord Arbuthnot himself raised the point about Fujitsu the last time we discussed this issue. While it is of paramount importance that those who suffered are properly compensated—in so far as they can be, because they can never be fully compensated—that money should come not from the public purse but from those who supplied deficient goods, with anything that is left topped up by the public purse. I want to press a point that I have made several times to the Minister: it really is in everyone’s interest that we get this concluded as soon as we possibly can. People are still suffering and indeed still dying.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Again, I find myself agreeing in large part with my noble friend. I am happy to join him in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot, and to the many other noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber and indeed Members on both sides of the House of Commons as well who have campaigned for many years to draw attention to this outrageous situation. Again, I do not really want to apportion blame until we have the results of the inquiry. The job of the inquiry is to find out who or what was responsible for the case. We all have our suspicions but let us wait and see what the inquiry comes up with and then draw the appropriate conclusion.