Post Office Compensation

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions and her support for today’s announcement. She is absolutely right: no amount of financial compensation can truly compensate people for what has happened. It is an horrendous set of circumstances and one of the biggest scandals that this nation has ever seen.

The hon. Lady is right, but as I say, it was important that we drew the line somewhere on what the compensation level would be. We looked at the average compensation claims that were coming through for overturned convictions, and we settled on a figure on the generous side of that. We think it is a fair figure, but of course people can still take the other option and go down the full assessment route.

The hon. Lady makes a very good point about whether people who have been awarded less through the full route would get the minimum level. That is something on which we are working with the advisory board. We are very keen to engage with the advisory board; I think it is very important that people who are looking for compensation have the reassurance that the advisory board is in place. Its parliamentary members have been very vocal campaigners on the issue for a long time.

For anybody who had an overturned conviction, but who has passed away: yes, if they had received a lower amount, it would be topped up to £600,000.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The Select Committee on Business and Trade heard some absolutely harrowing accounts of the impact on postmasters who were falsely accused. Is the Minister happy that we can now finally conclude this matter and get people back to living normally?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for all his work, not least on the Select Committee, of which he has been a member for a long time; he does a fantastic job on it. He is exactly right: we want people to be able to draw a line under the devastating impact this has had on their lives and livelihoods, and move on. It is one thing establishing what went wrong, but a compensation scheme then has to be put in place. It invariably takes a lot of time to assess somebody’s loss, because of the complexities around financial losses and the impact on people’s personal lives. This is a way to draw a line under things very quickly, which is exactly the intention behind the scheme. We hope that people will step forward and then be able to move on with their lives.