Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Kevin Hollinrake

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his work. He raises a very important point. The motivation behind the actions of the Post Office and executives and managers in the Post Office is something that Sir Wyn Williams is looking at as part of his inquiry, and I am very interested to see the results of that. There is no sense that I am aware of that this was just another method of trying to contribute towards the closure of a post office. Despite the closures that my right hon. Friend has experienced, that is principally about the general nature of the impact on high streets of changing shopping habits, which is causing difficulties for some of the network. We are determined to try to ensure that the post office network is more viable and more sustainable, including for individual businesses. A more generous deal on the banking framework between banks and post offices, in terms of the remuneration that they get to manage access to cash, for example, is one of the ways that we can make post offices more sustainable. We are fully committed to maintaining a significant network across the country, and it is currently set at 11,500 branches.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It was referenced earlier that many people involved in this terrible scandal are coming forward—more since the drama—but of course a small proportion have not. The Minister and his Department have been trying to track down those who are eligible for compensation, including by writing to Members of this House. What support will the Department provide in forensic person and company searches to try to track down all those who are eligible but may simply have become so exasperated or exhausted that they walked away and wanted nothing further to do with it?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member raises an important point. We have written to all the people with convictions, for example, to say, “Please come forward.” It is not about a lack of ability to identify individuals; a lot of it is about the confidence of those people to come forward after what they have been through. We hope that making it easier to overturn a conviction and easier to access compensation will encourage more people to come forward. As he said, people have been coming forward—people have come directly to me since the ITV programme was aired—so we think that what we are doing and have done is helping with that, but we certainly need to do more to convince people that coming forward is the right thing to do and that they can be confident of good treatment.