Post Office Management Culture

Sarah Green Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for securing today’s debate. This has been a shocking and heartbreaking sequence of events. Nobody could fail to be moved by the testimony of the countless families affected by this scandal.

I will focus on one specific issue today: the pervasive use of non-disclosure agreements by Post Office management. I heard the Minister’s intervention about NDAs, and I think it is worth highlighting their use as part of the management culture at the Post Office. The more things come to light, the more shocking and pernicious this aspect of the scandal is. For example, a recent report by the Financial Times highlighted the distressing case of Martin Griffiths, who managed a post office for 18 years before tragically taking his life after spending £100,000 of his own money to meet accounting shortfalls. Post Office lawyers apparently offered his widow a settlement in exchange for her silence about the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death. Frankly, that is appalling. The Prime Minister himself, responding to a question in this Chamber just a few weeks ago, stated that

“The ability to speak out about things is key to unlocking justice.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 821.]

Last month, I was contacted by a constituent who worked for the Post Office for over three decades. He only grasped that there was an issue, and the scale of that issue, when a journalist got in touch about Horizon after he retired. He was, however, unable to agree to be interviewed because he is tied to a non-disclosure agreement that he signed when he retired from the Post Office. That, together with the Official Secrets Act, which he signed when he joined the Post Office, means that he has effectively been gagged. He told me:

“As a member of the Post Office project team that delivered Horizon, I, like many of my ex project colleagues, was aware of the truth behind many of the points that the Post Office have been at great pains to hide or deny. The Post Office were very careful to ensure that their employees with links to Horizon were unaware of how the system was operating or the volume of sub-postmasters that were being prosecuted.”

He also said:

“I am still staggered that someone at a senior level didn’t question the huge rise in prosecutions after the system was implemented…The Post Office have used these Non Disclosure Agreements to ensure that current and ex employees are effectively silenced. If not tied by these agreements it is possible that information would have been available to those enquiring about the scandal much earlier in the process.”

I spoke to my constituent again yesterday, and his sense of frustration was palpable. He knew, for example, that Fujitsu had remote access to live Horizon terminals, and he shared a host of other details, which prompts the question: how much sooner would this scandal have come to light if people such as my constituent had not been gagged? Of course, it is entirely understandable that these people felt unable to speak out. If they had spoken out, they risked not only prosecution for a criminal offence, but the possibility of the Post Office seeking recovery of moneys paid for voluntary redundancy, for example. As my constituent feels unable to speak out openly, I close by giving him the final word:

“I understand that a company needs the ability to protect its valid business interests and the interests of its clients. However, the non-disclosure agreements should not be so restricting to avoid malpractice being reported or to allow the company to blatantly lie when under investigation”.