Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady makes some important points about the length of time and the egregious nature of the situation that the former postmasters have had to suffer. She talks about the time it takes to get justice, and that is one of the core reasons why we set up the inquiry under Sir Wyn Williams. The average length of a statutory inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 is nearly three and a half years, which is a long time. We want to get answers now for the postmasters so that we are able to answer questions about who knew what, who did what and at what point, and learn lessons.

The hon. Lady asked about the Government’s role in this. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is working well with Sir Wyn Williams, and we are participating fully in the inquiry, as are the Post Office and Fujitsu. Sir Wyn Williams clearly feels that he is getting the support, answers and participation that he needs from the relevant organisations. If that changes, clearly we can review that.

The hon. Lady talks about Fujitsu. As well as the inquiry, there are ongoing investigations with the police into wider aspects of the case. She talks about Paula Vennells. People will talk about Paula Vennells’ positions and awards—there is an independent forfeiture committee to consider awards—but I am particularly pleased that, having stepped back from her other roles, she has committed to participate fully in this inquiry. It is to be welcomed that the former chief executive of the Post Office is doing that.

Finally, the hon. Lady talks about the Prime Minister not being on speed dial, or however she described it, for the group of litigants and the other postmasters. I can confirm that the Prime Minister is incredibly interested in and exercised about the situation, as we all are. He wants to make sure we work with the sub-postmasters to get them the justice they want and compensation for the prosecutions, through discussion and dialogue and by working with them and the Post Office in the first instance.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Knowing who did what will matter, but it is clear why it happened. In 1999, the Government withdrew from the contract and it became one of the worst private finance initiatives ever.

To know what happened, people should pay attention to the investigative journalists and what Lord Arbuthnot said. Computerworld in 2015, Computer Weekly in 2009 and Private Eye in 2015 laid out what the problems were. Second Sight, in its report, showed 12,000 communications failures a year between the terminals and the centre. There was a suggestion that some of the machines’ recordings of tax disc income, cash machines and other things were not coming through. I want to know whether Ministers and senior people in business, whether suppliers or customers, will pay attention not to glossy reviews saying how good things are, but to investigative journalists who say how bad things might be for the innocent. Until those innocent people, who were forced to plead guilty when they were not, are reimbursed the money they had not taken, we cannot sit quietly here in this House.

[Paul Scully]

I thank the Father of the House for his comments. There is no sense that this inquiry is glossy in any sense. Sir Wyn will get the technical support that he needs to understand exactly the points that my hon. Friend makes, including the testimony in the court cases. In the call for evidence, there is an opportunity to listen to the magazines that he referred to, including Computer Weekly, and other journalists who have covered this.