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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to help ensure that sub-postmasters wrongly convicted as a result of faults in the Horizon IT system receive (a) justice and (b) compensation.

The Government understands the serious impact that issues arising from faults with the Horizon IT system, and the Post Office’s management of these issues, have had on affected postmasters’ lives and livelihoods. This is why it is vital that postmasters affected by Horizon get the compensation and justice they deserve.

We welcome the decisions taken by the Court of Appeal and Crown Courts to overturn convictions - 47 to date. We are keen to see that all postmasters whose convictions are overturned are fairly compensated as quickly as possible and we are working with Post Office towards this goal. Post Office will be engaging with the postmasters in the first instance to understand what redress they are seeking.

It is the courts’ responsibility to decide whether convictions are overturned. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is continuing to consider applications made by postmasters to have their convictions quashed. Government will continue to closely monitor the Post Office’s work on addressing the issues identified by Justice Fraser.