Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Lord Offord of Garvel Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for the attention he has brought to convictions prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions. Amendment 1 would result in convictions for relevant offences in England and Wales that were prosecuted by the DWP being quashed at Royal Assent. I reiterate the Government’s view, which I set out in a certain amount of detail in Committee earlier in this Chamber, that the cases prosecuted by the DWP were of a very different nature from those prosecuted by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Government’s view is therefore that it is right that they remain excluded from the scope of the Bill and that these convictions should not be quashed through this legislation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for his question; I can assure him that DWP prosecutions had nothing to do with the Horizon system. There are no instances that we are aware of where someone committed an offence prosecuted by the DWP because they were accused of Horizon shortfalls. With that, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Offord of Garvel]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a statement on the legislative consent process in relation to this Bill. In the other place, the Government tabled amendments to bring Northern Ireland within the scope of the Bill and sought legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Executive to do so. Unfortunately, due to the existing expedited timescales, we have not yet been able to secure a legislative consent Motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly for this piece of legislation.

However, my department has received a letter today from the Northern Ireland Justice Minister confirming the Executive’s support for the Bill as it relates to Northern Ireland. The Justice Minister wrote: “In the absence of the Assembly’s legislative consent, it is important to note that on 9 May 2024 the Executive Committee agreed an extension of the provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland. The Justice Committee has also considered this matter at two meetings and has informally indicated its support for Northern Ireland’s inclusion on both occasions. Finally, as noted in previous correspondence, to date there has been unequivocal support for Northern Ireland’s inclusion within the Bill from all executive parties”. I am grateful for the work of counterparts in the Northern Ireland Executive and their officials for their constructive engagement on this Bill.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I have some brief thank yous. I will not delay your Lordships long. I thank the Front Bench of His Majesty’s Opposition for working collaboratively, the Minister, the Whips and, in particular, the Bill team, who have had to scramble on this. The noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, needs a special mention in all this. I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for her work on this issue and Sarah Pughe in our Whips’ office, who has been behind much of our work. We have worked well on this Bill together. Let us now pass it.