Post Office: GLO Compensation Scheme

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

Again, it is a dangerous and sometimes potent mixture to have the backing of essentially endless taxpayers’ money in a battle of David and Goliath. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, Ministers always have to be careful to weigh the advice to make sure that, when we wield the power of the state, we do so in the interest of society as a whole and not, as has clearly happened in this case, in a manner detrimental to individual citizens—in this case postmasters and sub-postmasters. His point is well made.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my constituent Nichola Arch and hundreds like her who have campaigned tirelessly and constructively, despite their lives being torn apart by this scandal. There are adult children of postmasters and postmistresses who have only known their parents’ battle. It is right that the compensation scheme is generous and provides the necessary uplift to reflect the trauma of prosecution, and it is right that it is sensitively handled, but what we have seen with past Government compensation schemes, where the legal fees are covered, is that ambulance-chasing third-party organisations get involved and prey on the vulnerable, who are already exhausted. The upshot is often that the compensation is reduced to pay these third-party organisations. Will my right hon. Friend tell the postmasters and postmistresses from the Dispatch Box that the scheme has been designed so they do not need to rely on ambulance-chasing organisations and that all compensation should go into their pockets?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As the right hon. Member for North Durham has also said, we do not want to see a complex and expensive legal process that costs a fortune for those who should have been compensated long ago. That is why this is going through an alternative dispute resolution process. We will also provide assistance in pulling the papers together so that people can make their applications as easily as possible.