Post Office Horizon Scandal: Compensation Payments

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

Once again, we are in a situation where we are dealing with private individuals and HR. We should not be doing that in this Chamber, or indeed in television studios; individuals’ livelihoods are at stake here. We did not want to be in this position, but we have to refute the allegations made against us. A judgment will be made by the Secretary of State as to all supporting documentation, and read-outs of minutes will be put in the House of Commons Library. At the end of the day, it comes back to the fact that we need a full inquiry to find out what has actually happened here.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I have seen reports that there are still problems with the Horizon system and that some postmasters are still experiencing the problem of underpayments that created this disastrous position. My question is about ensuring that compensation goes to people as quickly as possible. Can my noble friend assure me that that will be the case and that we will look into the suggestion that this is still an ongoing problem, and, if so, ensure that remedial action is taken?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The response from management on this—and this has now been audited—is that issues with the software system are minimal, and £150 million of government money has now gone in to completely replace the system. A lot of investment is going in to ensure that this does not happen again. On compensation for victims, of the 2,700 claims in the HSS, 2,400 have already had their payments cleared—that is 85% of that category. The more sluggish category is the GLO, because those people have more complicated claims. As I said before, we have received only 58 claims from that cohort. As soon as we get them, we will process them.