Post Office Horizon System

Debate between Peter Heaton-Jones and Andrew Bridgen

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and he is right. Many people pleaded guilty on advice from lawyers or out of fear of losing their liberty in a lengthy and expensive court battle with the Post Office.

The House should know that the Horizon system has no adequate suspense account function, so it pushes the sub-postmaster who wants to balance his books when the books actually do not balance. This is false accounting and a criminal offence. However, I have seen correspondence that shows that the Post Office has advised sub-postmasters to keep any surplus balances that they discover at the close of business in their safe so that they can put them back when they have a shortage. That is also false accounting and is also a criminal offence.

A further flaw is the fact that issues of concern to the forensic accountants Second Sight, appointed by the Post Office at the request of the working group to assess independently the mediation cases, have been specifically excluded from mediation—for example, the absence or the ignorance on the part of the sub-postmaster of the contract they were under, and the failure of audits and investigation—despite the agreement of Post Office Ltd with Members of this House that the scheme would cover all these issues. This is resulting in what I believe to be 90% of the cases in dispute being excluded from the mediation scheme. This mediation has proven to be a shadow of what was agreed with Members.

I first became involved in this matter several years ago when my constituent Michael Rudkin brought his case to me. My constituent had 15 years’ experience as a postmaster and served as a senior member of the national executive. Indeed, he was chairman of the negotiating committee, the most senior post within the National Federation of SubPostmasters, responsible for national negotiations with Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail Group. In short, my constituent knew his job and the organisation inside out. He knew the organisation to the extent that on a visit to the Post Office headquarters in Bracknell, he was shown in error a room where operatives had remote access to the Horizon software and it was demonstrated to him how postmasters’ accounts could be altered remotely. The House should know that the Post Office has always maintained that it is not possible to alter accounts in a sub-post office remotely. However, it has recently admitted that this was not the truth.

In a debate in December I went into the details of Mr Rudkin’s case. To summarise, his post office branch had a loss in the accounts in excess of £44,000. He was absolved of any knowledge of this loss by Post Office Ltd but ordered to pay back the money at £1,000 per month from his salary. After he had paid back £13,000, Post Office Ltd started proceedings against Mr Rudkin’s wife for theft and false accounting. It also applied for a confiscation order to be placed on all his property and had his bank accounts frozen using the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This all occurred after my constituent had witnessed the operatives in Post Office headquarters demonstrating their remote access to the Horizon system.

My constituent has gone through the mediation scheme and his experience is that the professional advisers, Aver Ltd, Bill Cleghorn and Emma Porter, are very good. Second Sight has been extremely fair, professional and accurate in its analysis of both systemic and thematic issues within Post Office Ltd. However, the same cannot be said of the Post Office itself. I and my constituent have no faith in its ability to resolve the matter. It is said that justice delayed is justice denied, and this matter has simply dragged on for too long, with the Post Office seemingly looking for ever more reasons to delay the truth of the matter coming out.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

In the past five days I have been alerted to a case in my constituency. Very briefly, the sub-postmistress emailed me to say:

“My post office has been audited today and has been closed due to financial discrepancies as a result, I believe, of the inadequacies of the Horizon system.”

That has left the village without a post office service, and obviously it is also putting an intolerable strain on my constituent. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend and the Minister considered the impact that that is having.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend is quite right. When we hear a Post Office spokesperson stating,

“I am really sorry if people have faced lifestyle problems as a result of their having been working in Post Office branches”,

we have to wonder whether the organisation is even aware of the misery it has caused. The fact that Post Office Ltd believes that honest, decent, hard-working people losing their homes, their businesses, their savings, their reputation and, worst of all, in some cases their liberty can be quantified as a “lifestyle change” only serves to show that the organisation is not fit to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

The Post Office mediation scheme has proven to be a sham, Second Sight has proven to be far too independent for the Post Office to stand, and the disdain that has been shown to Members of this House and to sub-postmasters is a disgrace.