Post Office Horizon Scandal: Compensation Payments Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business and Trade
Lord Sahota
Main Page: Lord Sahota (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Sahota's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
Post Office Horizon Scandal: Compensation Payments
Lord Sahota Excerpts(10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
That is absolutely the case, and my colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, has made it very clear that we will pursue Fujitsu for its share of the compensation. It is not right that the sole payer of the compensation should be the taxpayer.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, what is the government advice to the postmasters who, due to their experience, have developed mental health problems, and received all kinds of electric shocks and so on, and are unable to work?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
The government advice is that each individual claimant must submit his or her claim, and money is available to them to take legal and medical advice. That is part of the reason why we think that, of the 477 cases, we have 58 claims—because they are more complicated—quite rightly being put together by each claimant and their advisers. When these claims are submitted, we have guaranteed that we will action 90% of them within 40 days of receipt.