Ed Davey hit the headlines for falling off a paddleboard, bungee jumping and Zumba dancing as part of his unconventional election campaign. But the Liberal Democrat leader’s attention-grabbing stunts paid off when his newly resurgent party won 72 seats, its highest total since 1923.
Fresh from his triumph, Davey will be in the spotlight for a more sombre reason on Thursday, as he testifies to the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
Davey, who was postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, and Pat McFadden, Labour’s new chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, are among politicians who have had responsibility for the Post Office in the past and face questioning this month.
The inquiry is examining the Post Office’s policy of hounding and prosecuting branch operators for more than a decade, alleging financial shortfalls in their accounts. It has since emerged that these discrepancies were caused by IT bugs within the Post Office Horizon computer system.
All three main political parties face questions over what they knew about the scandal, which gained fresh prominence after a powerful ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, documented the fight for justice waged by Sir Alan Bates.
McFadden – who was Labour’s election campaign co-ordinator and is now a powerful figure in Keir Starmer’s government – will give evidence to the inquiry on Thursday.
McFadden was minister for postal affairs between 2007 and 2009 under Gordon Brown. He told the BBC earlier this year that he wished he had asked more questions about Horizon. He said: “Each time an MP raised a question about this, the reply would come back from the Post Office that they thought the system was robust, they had no evidence to suggest there was anything wrong with Horizon.”
But even in 2009 there were warning signs. Computer Weekly published its first article about convicted Post Office operatives in May that year, and Bates formed his Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance a few months later.
Davey became postal affairs minister in the coalition government in 2010. He has faced criticism for having initially refusing a meeting with Bates that year – although the pair did meet later. Writing in the Guardian, Davey said: “I’m sorry I did not see through the Post Office’s lies – and that it took me five months to meet Alan Bates.”
Two former Lib Dem leaders who held office in the coalition government will also testify this month, including ex-business secretary Sir Vince Cable.
Speaking to TalkTV this year, Cable said “large numbers” of ministers had been in charge during the scandal, which he termed a “terrible failure by the British state and government”.
Before leading the Lib Dems for five months in 2019, Jo Swinson was postal affairs minister between 2012 and 2013 and again in 2014 to 2015. She will answer questions on 19 July.
She was in the job when forensic investigator Second Sight carried out a review of the Horizon IT system and told parliament in July 2013 that its report had found “no evidence of system-wide problems with the Horizon software.” She has since said she had been misled.
The toughest questioning is likely to be reserved for politicians who held office under Conservative governments from 2015, when the scandal was regularly hitting the headlines.
In 2015 BBC’s Panorama highlighted concerns with Horizon and by 2016 Bates and 554 other subpostmasters had begun high court action against the Post Office.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a junior minister between 2014 and 2016, is due to testify on 23 July. The inquiry has already heard that in 2015, Neville-Rolfe asked Tim Parker, who was taking over as chair of the Post Office, to look at the Horizon scandal with “fresh eyes” and examine concerns regarding the IT system.
Parker has told the inquiry that he commissioned a barrister-led review, but its 2016 report was not shared with the Post Office board and the government was only briefed orally because of legal concerns.
Greg Clark, business secretary between 2016 and 2019, will testify in late July, as will along with former ministers Margot James and Kelly Tolhurst. James told Channel 4 earlier this year that she wished she had done more to help operatives.
Clark, James and Tolhurst all held government posts during the landmark 2019 high court case at which the Post Office continued to argue that its Horizon IT system was reliable and post office operators must be to blame for shortfalls.
Davey and McFadden have been contacted for comment.
• The headline of this article was amended on 14 July 2024. An earlier version referred to “three former Liberal Democrat leaders”. This has been changed to “Ed Davey and former Lib Dem leaders”.
