Post Office Compensation

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I am entirely in tune with what the noble Baroness said. It is incumbent on the Government to use every channel that we can to reach out to these people. It has not been easy and we continue to try as hard as we can. I will write to tell the noble Baroness exactly what the Government are doing directly and through the Post Office.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, this is the most appalling scandal. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, should be congratulated on the work that he has done, pursuing this point for years. I wish he were in the House today. It is important that, when the inquiry concludes, people are held to account for what they did and did not do or know. The appalling suggestion is that people knew that something was wrong and allowed people to be prosecuted and convicted. Can you imagine being accused of theft, taken to court, convicted and sent to prison, when you were totally innocent? That is what has gone on here. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, also made a point about people who were just fired.

We talked about why people have not come forward. It may be that they are older or from minorities. They also might be very scared. Will they be believed? They have gone through this nightmare, this trauma, and they have moved on and are worried about bringing it all back. We have to understand the difficulty that people may find themselves in here and do something about it. It is absolutely appalling, and I do not know how people can live with themselves if they knew something but then allowed people to have their lives destroyed. People have died.

I am sure the Government are very sincere about what they are doing when they say that they are going to do this, try that and make this happen, but they have the power to sort this out. They can sort this out; nobody else can. They can find these people and assure them that they will make a difference. They have the power —they should use it and use it now.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I entirely agree. It is only the Government who can do this. The Post Office prosecuted nearly 700 people; other agencies prosecuted another 200. We have had 86 convictions overturned, which is not a lot, and we have contacted more than 600 postmasters who were prosecuted. There is an absolute will and intention to get this sorted out. What is very difficult is to define exactly how one reaches the parts that we have so far failed to achieve. All I can really say is rest assured; it is an extremely high priority. More and more funds and resources are being allocated and we will continue to push until we get to the bottom of this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I want to pursue that point. The noble Earl said that people have been contacted. How have they been contacted? Is it a letter? Is it a phone call? Have you knocked on the door? Have you gone back again? We need to know what that contact is, because if people are not coming forward from that contact, then it has failed. People need to know that we accept that a great injustice has been done to them and we want to sort it out. The noble Earl may not be able to answer the point now, so will he write to me and to other noble Lords in the House to say what the method of contact is and what they are going to do when they have not got a response?

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Before the Minister answers that, it is important to bring home and build on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. A strategy to communicate with certain communities is different from a strategy to communicate with the mainstream community. It involves community leaders, different media and different things. Do the Government have a proper media communication strategy of the sort that was just mentioned that involves using community leaders as intermediaries for those people to give them the confidence to step forward?

I talked about the Post Office being obfuscatory. Among the things it was obfuscatory about were appalling racial slurs that were used to characterise those people. At the heart of this is a racial element, and we should not forget that. Many of the people who were punished may well have been singled out because of their classification within that process. I think the Government owe it to them to double down on this communication.