Access to Redress Schemes

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). I learnt about many different redress schemes, many of which I had not even considered, so he has done the House a service this afternoon. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord): it is a real pleasure to be able to speak in such an important debate, and I thank him for introducing it.

When injustice has occurred, and particularly in cases of widespread injustice, it is imperative that those who are wronged are provided with meaningful avenues of recourse. Proper justice cannot be achieved until victims receive the redress to which they are entitled, but as we have heard this afternoon, time and again that simply does not happen. What we often see is an excessively bureaucratic process administered by the party at fault, moving at a snail’s pace while the victims’ redress is minimised and they continue to suffer. Indeed, someone said to me just today, “The folk in suits and boardrooms always seem to benefit from the misery and hardship of others, while the actual victims are last in the queue for redress.”

The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) referred earlier to the number of lawyers who had benefited from the scandal involving Post Office Ltd while the victims themselves had not received proper compensation. We are all painfully aware of the well-documented issues that have plagued various compensatory schemes in the United Kingdom. Others have already mentioned the Windrush, infected blood, vaccinations and, of course, the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British legal history, the Post Office Horizon scandal. Without proper redress, justice is denied for victims, who cannot find closure for what is often a deeply traumatic chapter of their lives.

Through my work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices, I am sadly all too familiar with the suffering of Horizon victims, who have shouldered the burden and have had to fight tooth and nail to get the financial redress they are entitled to. Despite everything, they are still being subjected to humiliating and derisory offers. Even Alan Bates, who valiantly led the campaign for justice for sub-postmasters, and took on the Post Office and won, recently spoke of the pitiful offer of redress he received. He highlighted to the Business and Trade Committee the perennial delay and the deadlines missed by the Post Office and the Government, who are administering the three compensation schemes. Similarly, campaigner Christopher Head, the youngest horizon victim, told me that the offer he received was just a tiny fraction of what he and Government-appointed forensic accountants had estimated he was entitled to.

I regularly meet sub-postmaster victims in Motherwell and Wishaw, and to see the effect on individuals at first hand is truly awful. Despite my repeatedly advising them to apply to the Horizon shortfall scheme because many of them were not prosecuted, they want nothing to do with any of the schemes, because they feel traumatised by what they have already gone through and the thought of dealing directly with Post Office Ltd again causes them great hurt.

The application forms for the redress schemes for Horizon are legally complex. Even Dan Neidle, a legal expert, has said that he would require legal advice when filling them out, and the amount of money given by Post Office Ltd to victims is derisory and token. As has already been said, however, lawyers are making millions of pounds from the misery of others. In addition, Post Office Ltd did not make it clear on the forms that applicants could claim for damage to their reputation, meaning that many folk have already settled for far less than they should have. Further, there is the absence of an option to claim punitive damages, which Mr Neidle says a lawyer would spot immediately but a layperson would not, and it is really difficult to come back on this.

Shockingly, Post Office Ltd has continued to attempt to suppress the truth by warning sub-postmasters who received an offer under the HSS that they could not legally mention compensation terms to anyone, including other applicants, the press, their family or their friends. That was totally inaccurate and highlights the need for an independent adjudicator to provide oversight. The Minister has said on the Floor of the House that no one will be pursued for speaking about Horizon compensation, but that does not help someone who is already traumatised. It took one of my constituents about 10 years to admit that he had been paying into his post office and had taken out another mortgage to try to cover the costs. It is ridiculous that, on top of everything else, people were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

An applicant to the HSS has described the process of trying to get fair redress as “soul-destroying”. We have already heard that Lee Castleton has shown that lawyers are making more money than the victims of Horizon. If any good has come out of the Horizon IT scandal, it is that the affair has demonstrated the need for statutory guidance and for an independent oversight body to administer compensation schemes, as has been called for already today. For that reason, I support the motion. The Government must create statutory guidance, with clear principles for operating a redress scheme. It will save victims of future scandals—there will be future scandals—from the additional pain and suffering that Horizon, infected blood, Windrush and vaccination victims have had to endure.

I am hopeful about yesterday’s announcement of Government amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill that would establish an arm’s length body to administer the infected blood compensation scheme, regulations around payment, application procedures and appeals. I sincerely hope that the Government are finally learning from the failure of redress schemes in the past.

Last month, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report on Women Against State Pension Inequality found that thousands of women born in the 1950s are entitled to compensation. That could and should lead to the payment en masse of financial redress to the WASPI women, who have campaigned tirelessly for years. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) has secured an important debate on redress for the WASPI women. It is essential that any compensation scheme that is set up to remedy this injustice is administered fairly, independently, transparently and efficiently. If lessons are not learned from the failures of redress schemes such as the one for Horizon victims, proper justice will not be achieved and thousands of victims will have been failed by the UK Government again.

I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I agree with the hon. Member for Christchurch that it is really difficult to understand why more MPs are not here to stand up for their constituents, regardless of whatever scandal they have been involved in and whatever compensation scheme to which they are looking for redress. I hope the Minister is listening carefully, and I hope to hear a good response later on.