Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a powerful point. Of course, the judgment is relatively recent and no decisions have been taken regarding compensation, so I cannot give him any specific commitments today. However, I repeat that we are keen to see that all postmasters whose convictions are overturned are fairly compensated as quickly as possible. I know that the issue of compensation will be of great interest to the House, and I commit to update the House on this matter whenever it is appropriate.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, as a businessman, I am embarrassed that our culture of corporate governance and a failure of corporate leadership has directly ruined the lives of the innocent. As Mr Justice Fraser’s judgment lays bare, this includes the fact that they defended an untenable case, and how they did it shows how hollow and disingenuous even the current statements by the Post Office should be seen. The positions of the chairman and CEO are difficult to justify. Can the Minister provide assurance that the serious questions this raises about the position of every member of the current board, and indeed the responsibility of all members since the board was first presented with problems in the system nearly a decade ago, can be fully examined without a statutory inquiry? Can he also assure us that the Government are now willing to provide a full statement relating to what they were told and their actions and role as shareholder? Their apparent failure to provide vigorous challenge to the board meant that this scandal has carried on for as long as it has and illustrates a likely flaw in the Government’s role as a shareholder in this and potentially other circumstances.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I can give the noble Lord the assurance he asked for in the first part of his question: Sir Wyn, as part of his evidence gathering, is looking at the issue of corporate governance, where it is clear that there are some serious questions that need to be answered. On his question about the role of the shareholder, as I have said before on a number of occasions in this place, the Government pressed the management at the time on issues regarding complaints brought by sub-postmasters about Horizon, and we received repeated assurances that the system was reliable. Of course, the Court of Appeal opined that the Post Office had consistently asserted that Horizon was robust and reliable at the time.