Post Office: Horizon Accounting System Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Polak
Main Page: Lord Polak (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Polak's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberOf course, there was an agreed settlement for the sub-postmasters who took legal action. It would not be right for the Government to interfere in that settlement.
As is clear for the individuals and families caught up in the Horizon disaster, life continues to be unbearable. I ask my noble friend the Minister to help me answer my friend Rita Threlfall, the former sub-postmistress from Liverpool, whose story I highlighted in this House on 18 June. She said this weekend: “We seek reasonable justice, and it is still our aim to have a judicial inquiry, as we all feel it is the only way to uncover the truth behind the reason we have suffered financial loss through no fault of our own. But more importantly, it will help us in some way to mend our broken lives.”
The lady that my noble friend mentions is one of many tragic cases arising from this. It is indeed an appalling scandal. Of course, there has already been a judicial finding of faults in this, and the comments of Mr Justice Fraser are well worth reviewing. We want to go further than that: we want a proper review, and to be fully assured that through the review there is a public summary of the failings that occurred at the Post Office through this scandal—drawing on the judgments from the Horizon case and by listening to those most affected—without repeating the findings of Mr Justice Fraser.