Justice secretary Alex Chalk is holding crunch talks with judges on Tuesday to expedite clearing the names of hundreds of subpostmasters wrongfully convicted in the Horizon IT scandal.
Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride said the discussions are under way as Rishi Sunak’s government considers ways to overturn many more convictions – including possible legislation.
Ministers “intend to move very quickly” to resolve the issue, he said, after the miscarriage of justice was brought into the spotlight by an ITV drama.
Mr Stride told Times Radio Mr Chalk was in talkks with senior legal figures and judges “to look at what the options are to make sure that we push through that backlog of appeals as quickly as possible”.
It could see hundreds of former branch managers exonerated in one go – something both Tory MPs and Labour are pushing the government to do.
Rishi Sunak has said ‘we’re on it’, vowing to right the wrongs of the Horizon IT scandal— (PA/EPA)
On Sky News, Mr Stride said talks were taking place on Tuesday morning: “So this is something that is happening hour by hour. It’s not something that’s going to happen next week. It is happening right now and we intend to move very quickly.”
A solution could be announced by the end of the week, the cabinet minister said. More than 700 branch managers were given criminal convictions after faulty Horizon accounting software, developed by Fujitsu, made it appear as though money was missing.
Mr Stride was challenged over the slow pace of them being cleared and whether the government was asleep at the wheel.
“I wouldn’t accept that,” he said, pointing to the public inquiry examining what went wrong being set up some years ago and the payout of £138 million of compensation.
Asked whether Rishi Sunak as chancellor was slow to pay out compensation to subpostmasters, Mr Stride said: “No, I don’t think that is a fair charge at all.”
MPs have called for Fujitsu, the firm behind the faulty Horizon accounting software that made it look as if money was missing from shops, to pay for compensating wronged Post Office staff.
Mr Stride suggested the company might have to stump up if the inquiry concludes it blundered, saying it “won’t necessarily just be the taxpayer” who is “on the hook for this money”.
But he stopped short of saying the Japanese tech firm should be barred from being awarded millions of pounds of government contracts while the Post Office inquiry is ongoing. “My view is that we need to wait to see what the inquiry decides in terms of culpability.”
Ministers are looking at changing the rules around private prosecutions by companies, Mr Stride said, amid calls including from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to strip prosecution powers from the Post Office.
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake announced a new, independent panel to review compensation disputes – calling the scandal “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history”.
A petition calling for the former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells to lose her CBE has received more than 1 million signatures— (Teri Pengilley for The Independent)
However, Tory MPs urged to the government to go further and come up with legislation to overturn convictions en mass.
“All of the cases depend on one single lie,” the former minister David Davis told the BBC. “I see no real reason why you can’t have a mass case on that basis.”
Ex-justice secretary Robert Buckland also called for legislation to deal with all the cases together. “I think the government does have space in which it can make some moves here,” he said.
However, Dominic Grieve, former Tory attorney general, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that legislation was “not a particularly commendable approach” – warning that it may not “get rid of convictions”.
Prof Graham Zellick KC, former chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, said the body “could do this job very quickly” rather than have MPs overrule the judicial system.
The senior Tory also said Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has “big questions” to answer on his role in the Horizon scandal as postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012.
Sir Ed lashed out at “the people in the Post Office who were perpetrating this conspiracy of lies” in an interview with The Guardian.
Reports suggest that 50 new potential victims have approached lawyers since ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office was broadcast. The Post Office is wholly owned by the government.
