Post Office: Horizon Accounting System

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

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

The noble Lord was getting a bit ahead of himself in asking his supplementary question before he asked his main Question, so I will answer that main one first and then come on to the second one.

The answer to the Question that he originally posed to me as a Private Notice Question is that, on 2 October, the Post Office announced that it would not oppose 44 of the 47 cases referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. This is an important milestone for the postmasters appealing their convictions. It is now for the courts to decide whether their convictions should be overturned, and it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on these cases until that process is complete.

I will now move to the question which the noble Lord just asked. The settlement was agreed in December and was full and final; for this reason, it has been excluded from the scope of the inquiry.

On the question of its prosecution function, the chief executive of the Post Office, Nick Read, has assured the Government and confirmed publicly that the Post Office is not currently conducting any private prosecutions and has no plans to do so.

As regards current and future litigation, of course only the courts can decide on criminal matters, such as whether to overturn the postmasters’ convictions, so it would not be appropriate for the inquiry to look at these questions, especially when the court process is still ongoing.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I think we have dealt with both questions there.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, for continuing to press this issue doggedly over the last decade. Under the framework document, the Post Office business plan must address

“the state of the relationship … with the community of postmasters.”

The sole shareholder—the Government—is required to meet the CEO

“at least twice a year”.

Ministers have known all about this grotesque scandal. It is not good enough to hide behind the pretence that these matters were merely operational. At how many of those biannual meetings did the Minister pursue this? If he did not, surely that is negligence? If he did, why has it taken so long?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am afraid I cannot give the noble Lord a direct answer. I do not know how many lawyers were engaged. I will try to find out and will write to him on this. I should imagine a lot. But I do not know the number because the matter was one for the Post Office. We have announced the inquiry. These are matters that the inquiry will want to go into. I am sure Sir Wyn will want to pursue this. I hope he will produce the appropriate conclusions and will attach the blame—if there is any—to those who are responsible.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.