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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much the special shareholder approved in the Post Office Horizon litigation; and whether the special shareholder took into account the amount claimants were asking for in the settlement mediation.

The Government is pleased that a resolution has been reached between the parties to settle this long-running litigation and the steps they have taken through the mediation talks. Postmasters are the backbone of the Post Office, and their branches are vital to communities across the country. That is why Government takes Post Office Limited's (POL) relationship with its postmasters very seriously.

On 11 December following mediation talks, the parties to the litigation agreed a settlement figure of £57.75m. Government was not party to the mediation discussions. The agreed settlement included all legal and other costs, The settlement was funded entirely by POL’s commercial revenues. The Government as shareholder specifically required that government funding was not used for this purpose.

Given the nature and scale of the settlement payment, the Government did approve the final figure.