It is the greatest miscarriage of justice in British history. The Post Office Horizon scandal saw hundreds of innocent people sent to prison, and thousands more lives were ruined. It is a tragedy that cascades down the generations. We all know the stories of the subpostmasters hurt by the Horizon scandal, but we often forget or simply do not hear the tragic tales of their children, whose childhoods were snatched away by the appalling scandal that destroyed their parents.
That is why the Business and Trade Select Committee, which I chair in the House of Commons, decided at its first meeting to begin an immediate inquiry into how we can accelerate justice for those subpostmasters who have still not received the redress to which they are entitled.
We are now fast approaching the anniversary of ITV’s famous drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. And yet, the awful truth is that, at best, we have only paid out 30 per cent of the £1.2billion budget allocated for financial redress to those who were wronged.
I do not think that is good enough. It’s true that payments are now being made faster than they were, but can we really say “job done” when so many still do not have the redress to which they are entitled? I do not think so.
So, at our first hearings next week, I will be inviting Alan Bates, newly married and newly knighted, back to Parliament to tell us what still needs fixing. Alongside him will be other subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted. We will hear from their lawyers, who are forced to haggle on their behalf, and we will hear from those running the dispute resolution schemes for their insights.
That will set up our final hearings a fortnight later, where we will put ministers on the spot and demand answers. I’ll also be summoning the new chairman of the Post Office to hear what he has to say for himself.
I already have a sense of some of the problems we will hear about. Many subpostmasters simply cannot bring themselves to put in claims for redress. They cannot confront or revisit the trauma they suffered, and too many simply do not trust the Post Office to take their claims seriously. Even worse is the issue of government lawyers spending months in negotiations. Often, an initial offer is put on the table quite quickly, but in too many cases, that offer is ridiculously low. When postmasters challenge the figures, lawyers sometimes disappear for months without providing any response.
We simply cannot go on like this. Next year, we will get the final report of an inquiry chaired by Sir Wyn Williams, which will pinpoint precisely who was to blame for this appalling miscarriage of justice. Frankly, I hope there will be arrests and prosecutions to quickly follow. After so many thousands of lives were ruined, it cannot be right that no one is held to account or sent to prison for the crimes they committed.
But alongside that final reckoning, it is vital that we ensure proper financial redress for those who lost so much. We like to think that we’re a country of fair play. Well, this is a big test, and right now, we are failing to meet it. That has got to change. I very much hope that our short, sharp select committee inquiry will spur the minister to do the right thing — and do it faster.
