Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Lord Sikka Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill, as it enables some postmasters wrongly convicted to secure some compensation and wipe the slate clean, though the scars of injustice will remain with them and their families for ever.

I will raise four broad areas of concern. First, as has been pointed out, Clause 1 quashes convictions prosecuted by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service only. It does not quash the 61 cases prosecuted by the DWP against postmasters in England and Wales. The DWP was the state prosecutor of postmasters until the end of 2012, when its prosecutorial function was assigned to the CPS by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Can the Minister say whether any of the CPS prosecutions being quashed were initiated by the DWP?

The omission of the DWP prosecutions from the Bill is utterly unfair. Just like the Post Office and the CPS, the DWP used Horizon-generated data and faced lies and cover-ups from the Post Office. It has now been conclusively shown that the Post Office and the CPS convictions were unsafe because of unreliable evidence, lies and cover-ups. It is hard to see why the same data, evidence and channels of generating evidence are somehow considered reliable for prosecutions by the DWP.

The DWP convictions were mostly prosecuted between 2000 and 2006, when there was a clear conspiracy of silence and cover-up around the flaws in the Horizon system and when the Post Office concealed a lot of information. Since then, many of the Crown Court transcripts and bundles of evidence relating to those convictions have been destroyed. Therefore, the Government’s argument of investigating these on a case-by-case basis is pretty much impossible and unlikely to provide any fairness to those individuals.

The DWP position is stated in a letter signed by Mrs Alison Riley, a senior lawyer with the DWP legal advisers in the Government Legal Department, from 28 September 2023, addressed to Professor Christopher Hodges of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board:

“I can say with some confidence that in the majority of cases we have found that those cases prosecuted by the DWP did not rely on evidence from the Horizon system but rather relied on physical evidence such as order books, vouchers and date stamps”.


Let us look at those words again. The letter used the phrase

“with some confidence”,

instead of “with absolute certainty” or “with 100% confidence”. The letter seems to suggest that there is some doubt. It also used the phrase

“in the majority of cases”.

Does that mean that there were cases where somebody was wrongly prosecuted by relying upon Horizon-generated data? Were there cases in which the DWP used Horizon-generated data to secure prosecutions? How many cases were there, which this letter is perhaps not identifying? I hope the Minister will be able to tell us.

Can the Minister say whether any convictions secured by the DWP have ever been quashed by the courts, at any time, from the year 2000 onwards? Has any DWP investigator, official or witness retracted evidence given on oath? If so, that makes all the convictions unsafe. Can the Minister categorically say that all 61 cases have been independently reviewed? Which documents were reviewed, when was this done and by whom? Were the victims invited to respond to the review? Has any post-conviction disclosure ever been made to postmasters who were previously prosecuted and convicted by proceedings brought by the DWP? Were they given the appropriate information? Against a wall of silence and lies by the Post Office, some people convicted by the DWP may even have been denied appeal, but the revelations of last three years surely change that. Can the Minister say how many of those prosecuted by the DWP have actually been denied appeal and are perhaps now deserving of it?

I am reminded of the maxim of the English jurist, William Blackstone:

“It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.


I therefore urge the Minister to amend the Bill and quash the convictions of those prosecuted by the DWP. If not, he should at the very least appoint an inquiry to examine the safety of the DWP convictions.

My second point is this. On 16 January, at Second Reading of the then Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill in this House, I urged the Minister to remove the Post Office’s involvement in setting the terms of compensation and in administering any aspect of compensation schemes, as that would only multiply the pain for postmasters. I understand from some postmasters—one of whom I spoke with earlier today—that the Post Office is still involved with the group litigation order scheme. It is also involved with the Horizon shortfall scheme, at least where some 360 to 370 disputed cases are concerned. It is good to know that there is a panel of King’s Counsels, but the problem is that the Post Office set the terms of reference, the guidance and the principles of the scheme. No matter how independent the panel, it is duty bound to follow those guiding principles. The Post Office basically cannot be trusted, and its involvement is a source of discomfort. Can the Minister shed some light on why the Post Office is still involved in these schemes, and what is to be done to remove it from them?

Thirdly, the Horizon inquiry has provided strong evidence of wrongdoings which warrant criminal charges. However, whenever any question is asked, the Minister’s standard response is that we must wait until the end of the Horizon inquiry and the subsequent report before any action is taken. That position is deeply unsatisfactory. It is hard to know why prosecutions have not already begun on the basis of evidence which has already been provided to the inquiry. Any delay would mean that many would escape justice altogether. It is quite conceivable that, in time, many will simply say that they are fragile, too old and have selective amnesia so simply cannot remember.

Just last Friday, the inquiry took evidence from Mr Rod Ismay, who used the phrase “I do not know” 125 times and said “I cannot remember” at least 40 times. What will happen when these individuals are eventually charged, possibly in another five or six years? They will simply get away. I urge the Minister to begin some criminal inquiries and charges now and not wait until the end of the inquiry.

My final point is the observation that the root cause of the Post Office scandal is the power of giant corporations to bludgeon people into submission and silence, all with a view to boosting profits, executive salaries and improving the bottom line. That is evident in many other cases: for example, P&O Ferries knowingly flouted the law to sack workers; water, rail, and energy companies are all abusing people; there is Grenfell; there is the finance industry, a serial offender in mis-selling financial products; drug companies are overcharging the NHS; G4S and Serco, which is overcharging the Government for contracts. Yet we have not really seen any move from the Government to democratise corporations, to empower the people, and to hold this unaccountable power to account. Can the Minister explain when exactly we can expect some reversal and some checks on the corporate power? People at the moment are struggling—they cannot get legal aid to take anybody to court. Regulators are, basically, in bed with many of the companies, and they are promoting competitiveness rather than safeguarding the customer’s interests. Governments are shielding corporate misdeeds. In this House, I provided evidence of how the Government shielded and covered up HSBC’s money laundering and made sure that it did not really face the full consequences. Without empowering citizens and curbing corporate power, Post Office-type scandals will recur. Can the Minister explain to the House why, in 14 years, little or nothing has been done to call corporations to account?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

My Lords, I will cross-check the record, but my understanding is that these 13 cases are recent and came to the Court of Appeal after the Hamilton judgment, so the courts were aware of the background in those cases.

The noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, Lord Sikka and Lord McNicol, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, questioned why this legislation does not include the cases prosecuted by the DWP, which we believe amount to 62. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked whether any DWP-prosecuted cases were quashed; we are not aware of any convictions being quashed by the Court of Appeal. These cases, unlike many of the cases prosecuted by the Post Office or the CPS, involved wider corroborating evidence beyond that supplied by the faulty Horizon system, so are unlikely to be unsafe in the same way. The existing and established appeal processes remain available in relation to these cases.

I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Holmes of Richmond, about the importance of delivering financial redress as quickly as possible. I am pleased to say that, as of 30 April, we have paid out more than £200 million in redress to over 2,800 claimants. Under the main Horizon shortfall scheme, 88% of claims have now been received and 72% paid out. We are going as fast as we can; we are reliant on the appeals coming forward and claimants making claims. We expect that, at the moment, many of those with overturned convictions are waiting for this Bill to pass and we expect their claims to come in more quickly following this legislation.

Financial redress is clearly not in scope of this legislation, but I hope it reassures noble Lords to know that, once the necessary legislation has been passed, we will provide a route to full, fair and rapid financial redress for quashed convictions. We will include information about redress in the notifications which we send to postmasters when their convictions are overturned. Our aim is that the redress process will follow seamlessly from the process of overturning convictions.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

Before we leave the issue of DWP convictions, can the Minister confirm or otherwise—he might wish to write—whether any DWP investigator, official or witness has at any point retracted evidence given under oath to any Crown Court?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I will need to write to the noble Lord on that point.

As my colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, said, we want to minimise any pause between the Bill coming into effect and redress payments being made.

To be clear, the GLO compensation scheme is independent of the Post Office. As requested by postmasters in our consultation, it is run by the Department for Business and Trade. Claims which are not agreed will be assessed by a panel whose members are independent of government and the Post Office. Any errors in decisions from the independent panel can be taken to the reviewer of the GLO scheme, Sir Ross Cranston. The Government are funding postmasters with overturned convictions to receive independent legal advice on their claims and offers. Retired High Court judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom has been put in place to chair an independent panel to resolve disputes on pecuniary losses. Horizon shortfall scheme claims are assessed by an independent panel of experts who provide a recommendation to the Post Office. To date, there have not been any instances where the Post Office has offered a lower amount than the recommendation of the panel.

The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, raised the accountability of Post Office executives. We await the outcome of the Wyn inquiry, which will provide clarity on this issue. Finding people guilty without looking at all the evidence is how we got into this mess in the first place. Postmasters were prosecuted without proper disclosure; we must not make the same mistake again in holding people accountable for this scandal, however tempting it might be. The public can be very reassured by the detailed investigation being conducted in public by Sir Wyn Williams. Each week reveals more shocking news, and I have no doubt that justice will be served by the inquiry.

A number of noble Lords have quite rightly mentioned Fujitsu. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has raised Fujitsu and its role in the scandal a number of times in this Chamber. It is right that the company has voluntarily decided not to bid for future government contracts for the time being while the inquiry is ongoing, unless the Government ask it to. The Government also welcome Fujitsu acknowledging that it has a moral obligation to contribute to compensation. The Government are in active conversations with the company at a very senior level about this.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, who has consistently raised the concept of the interrogation of computer evidence used in prosecutions. The Government are committed to preventing any further miscarriages of justice, like the Horizon scandal. There has been a proliferation of digital material in modern criminal cases, particularly in cases such as fraud and serious sexual offending but also in lower-level high-volume offences such as drink-driving. For this reason, any hasty changes to the legal position risk serious and significant unintended consequences for the running of the criminal justice system. However, the Lord Chancellor is fully considering all options available, and more consideration can be given to this matter and reported to the House through this process.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Holmes of Richmond, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for their comments on the territorial extent of the Bill. We all wish to see justice being applied in all four parts of the United Kingdom. The other place has agreed to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland, in recognition of the unique challenges faced by the Northern Ireland Executive in bringing forward their own in a similar timeframe to the rest of the UK. Their legislative process is lengthy and difficult to expedite, and the legislation would have to compete with the many other priorities accumulated during the two-year suspension of the Assembly. The Government are also cognisant of the extent of cross-community support for the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.

The Government’s position on Scotland remains unchanged. Scotland does not face the same challenges in bringing forward legislation within its Parliament as Northern Ireland does. It is for the Scottish Government to bring forward their own proposals to address prosecutions, and for those to be scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament in line with the devolution settlement. I hope that reassures the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that my officials have been supporting their counterparts in the Scottish Government to bring forward their own legislative proposals. I understand that they intend to do this shortly.

I turn to another of the very uncomfortable situations raised by the Horizon scandal, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, who spoke so powerfully about the racism experienced by victims of the Horizon scandal. I agree that this issue is very important. The Sir Wyn Williams inquiry has touched on this already in its oral evidence sessions. The Government are keen to hear anything that the inquiry concludes on this matter, including any recommendations for the future.

On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in relation to Capture, the precursor computer system to Horizon, at this point we have not found sufficient evidence to conclude that Capture led to people being wrongly convicted. Capture was very different from Horizon: it was a stand-alone spreadsheet, not an integrated accounting system. There were bugs in it, but they were admitted to by the Post Office. It was not an interactive system that could be manipulated by a third-party source, as was the case with Horizon. It helped postmasters balance their accounts, rather than operating as a black box, reporting accounts across the network to Post Office headquarters. Given the limited information that we currently have about Capture and resulting convictions, there is not yet any evidence that any miscarriages of justice took place. It is therefore the Government’s position not to seek to overturn these convictions or to consider Capture cases within the Horizon system inquiry.

However, I would like to reassure the noble Baroness that we are looking into what can be done on Capture. As soon as the Government found out about issues with the Capture system, we asked the Post Office to investigate. We are in the process of appointing an independent forensic investigator to look into the Capture software and how the Post Office addressed concerns about it. Once the investigator has reported, we will return to the House to set out our plans, but we do not consider that this should hold up the more important matter before us, which is overturning the Horizon convictions.

On the post-legislative process, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for his very useful contribution and his two points about creating a website for those who have been exonerated by this Bill. He has indicated that we do not have full contact details for all our claimants in this case. For reasons of confidentiality, it would not be right to create a public web page that would list the names of those exonerated. However, all those that are in scope will be written to on Royal Assent, and those that we have been able to identify in scope but have not been contacted can get in touch with the Government to have their cases looked into. We will ensure that GOV.UK is utilised to promote access to exoneration and financial redress. All guidance on the exoneration process and the financial redress scheme will be on GOV.UK.

I am grateful for the cross-party support shown towards this legislation and the valuable support of the Opposition Front Benches, represented by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

In closing, the Government recognise the profound impacts that the Horizon scandal had on those who were falsely accused. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, refer to individual cases, and we all know of examples in our local area where lives have been ruined, and each one is a very sad story on its own. Therefore, we legislate with that at the forefront of our minds, and the objective of this Bill is to exonerate those who were so unjustly convicted of crimes that they did not commit and provide fair redress as swiftly as possible. I beg to move.