Post Office Update

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

The Post Office speaks regularly to the unions and to postmasters in general. Two postmasters have been elected to serve on the board, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about access to cash. The Post Office has good plans to pilot new ways of access to cash to replace the last bank in town, an issue that he rightly articulates.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

As a former chair of the all-party group on post offices, I welcome the Minister’s announcement that this inquiry into the absolute disaster of the Post Office-Horizon IT issue will be put on a statutory footing. This issue has already damaged the lives of many people and shaken confidence not just in our ability to have effective public sector software contracts, but indirectly in our justice system which, because of wrong information, delivered wrong verdicts. The opportunity to provide redress for many of those involved is surely vital for us all. Will the Minister confirm that all possible technical advice will be provided to the inquiry so that some of the technical issues, such as the data library and so on, will be exposed—and, above all, who knew what? Will he also confirm that the role of the National Federation of SubPostmasters will be looked at closely to see what alarm bells it sounded and what communication there was between it and Post Office Ltd?

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Sir Wyn will look at both those things—he will look at those alarm bells—because that is so important to learn those lessons. We cannot learn them any other way, so he is right to do that. Clearly, with this being a computer software issue over two decades, Sir Wyn is getting the technical advice that he needs, and he will always have that support from us. We will make sure that he gets whatever he is asking for in terms of technical support.