Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what information his department holds on whether the Principal Accounting Officer with responsibility for the Post Office Ltd was aware of the budget for the legal costs of defending the Post Office group litigation.

The Principal Accounting Officer has been sighted with quarterly updates relating to Post Office Ltd’s (POL) change spend (including litigation) costs since 2018/19. Additionally, the Principal Accounting Officer is also sighted on POL’s annual budgets which includes forecasted legal costs.