Post Office minister: people responsible for the Horizon scandal ‘should go to jail’
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has said people responsible for the Horizon scandal “should go to jail” in an interview on BBC Breakfast.
Without specifically naming any one person, he told viewers:
The inquiry is unearthing the evidence, what you see now is a result of the inquiry, the statutory inquiry.
The Metropolitan police are undertaking an investigation – the Government doesn’t do that, the police do that.
When evidence has been established, people should be prosecuted – that’s my view.
And I think you, and other people I’ve spoken to, and I certainly feel, people within the Post Office, possibly further afield, should go to jail.
He continued:
We have to go through a process, we believe in the rule of law – lots of people in this room, and other people, have not had the benefit of the rule of law.
It has failed, failed these people, inexcusably.
We do believe in process, that’s the country we are very proud to live in.
But if the threshold is met, the evidence is there, where criminal prosecutions can be undertaken – and that those people are found guilty – I have no reservation in saying people should go to jail.
The former Post Office boss Paula Vennells, who ran the Post Office while it routinely denied there was a problem with its Horizon IT system, has already forfeited her CBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute” over her handling of the Horizon crisis.
Fujitsu’s Europe chief Paul Patterson has said it was “shameful and appalling” that courts hearing cases against post office operators over missing funds were not told of 29 bugs identified as early as 1999 in the accounting system it built.
The former chief executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, and the campaigner Alan Bates will give evidence this week as the public inquiry into the scandal enters its next phase.
Key events
The Liberal Democrats have called for the formation of a national agencyto support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Ed Davy said: “Parents of children with special educational needs across the UK are facing a postcode lottery.
“The Conservative Government has woefully underfunded both schools and local authorities, meaning that many parents simply can’t get their children the support they deserve.
“That is unacceptable. No child, or their family, should have to wait so long or fight so hard to have their needs met.”
PA Media reports Davy said called for the government to cut the amount schools pay towards the cost of a child’s additional SEND support – currently £6,000 per child.
Davy claimed this would help to remove the financial disincentive that stops schools from identifying pupils’ needs as early as possible.
While he was on the media round, Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride was questioned on why the government would raise pensions in line with inflation, but had fought against inflation level pay rises for the public sector. He told Times Radio:
Pensioners are on fixed incomes, they don’t have the ability to adjust their economic circumstances as other people who might go out and work more hours or get a different job or seek a promotion or a salary increase or whatever it may be. Those things are typically not there for pensioners.
Work and Pensions secretary again refuses to commit to paying Waspi compensation
Appearing on the BBC Today programe, Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride has agin refused to commit Rishi Sunak’s government to paying compensation to the Waspi women campaigners over changes to their state pension.
At the end of last month the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) said those affected should be compensated with recommended payouts of between £1,000 and £2,950 a person.
Stride told listeners this morning that “as the ombudsman report was published, at the earliest opportunity I personally appeared at the dispatch box in parliament. I made an oral statement … [and] took an hour and a half of questions from colleagues from right across the house and I have reassured them that … we will come back without undue delay.”
However, pressed on timing, Stride said he would not be “coaxed” into making an announcement, saying:
I’m not going put a precise time limit on it, but we do need to look at these things very carefully. This was a report that was five years in the making. It does relate to matters that started with legislation in 1995. So over 30 years ago, people have very strong feelings on both sides of the argument here.
I think I owe it to everybody to really make sure that the guiding light in this process is that it is thorough, and that it is conclusive, because it has gone on for an awfully long time – under governments of different colours incidentally – and going back 30 years.
The state pension is increased from today, raised to £11,500 a year from £10,600.
The Liberal Democrats have claimed the extra pension support would be largely wiped out, as more pensioners are dragged into paying income tax as a result of threshold freezes.
Work and pensions spokesperson Wendy Chamberlain said: “This Conservative government is picking pensioners’ pockets to try to fill the black hole caused by their disastrous economic policy.
“These are people who have played by the rules their whole lives, paid their taxes and contributed so much to our society. They expect that in their older years the government would look after them, not place even more financial hardship upon them during a cost-of-living crisis.”
Liberal Democrat analysis suggest up to 1.6 million more pensioners will be paying income tax within the next four years due to the threshold freezes.
Writing in the Telegraph, political correspondent Dominic Penna described the freezes in the threshold as “stealth taxes”. Pensioners start paying income tax at £12,570.
Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “Thanks to the triple lock and our efforts to drive down inflation, we are putting money back in the pockets of pensioners. This is only possible because we have stuck to our plan and our economy has turned a corner.”
The UK economy went into recession in the last two quarters of 2023. Inflation in shop prices in the UK has eased to the lowest level for more than two years, but food inflation is still running at 3.7%, higher then the Bank of England’s 2% target for inflation.
Minister claims he has instructed officials to ‘just settle’ Post Office Horizon compensation claims where ‘it looks right’
While appearing on BBC television this morning, Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has claimed that he has instructed government officials to “just settle” compensation cases where “it looks right”.
Hollinrake was being asked by an East Yorkshire subpostmaster about the legal costs involved in claiming compensation.
Lee Castleton, who was made bankrupt after he lost his legal battle with the Post Office over an alleged £25,000 shortfall, told the minister “we’re currently looking at paying £2 in legal fees for every £1 in compensation”.
Castleton said “it’s very adversarial, and people are talking about sitting in these meetings having to re-go through this criminal investigation. Why is that right for the taxpayer?”
In response, Hollinrake said:
Lawyers are a fact of life, and they have an important role to play, of course, but we’re keen to try reduce the legal argument over these processes.
We need to simplify the process, take the common sense view. I’ve said to our officials, and to legal representatives, “if it looks right, it is right, just settle it” – that’s what we need to do.
Post Office minister: people responsible for the Horizon scandal ‘should go to jail’
Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has said people responsible for the Horizon scandal “should go to jail” in an interview on BBC Breakfast.
Without specifically naming any one person, he told viewers:
The inquiry is unearthing the evidence, what you see now is a result of the inquiry, the statutory inquiry.
The Metropolitan police are undertaking an investigation – the Government doesn’t do that, the police do that.
When evidence has been established, people should be prosecuted – that’s my view.
And I think you, and other people I’ve spoken to, and I certainly feel, people within the Post Office, possibly further afield, should go to jail.
He continued:
We have to go through a process, we believe in the rule of law – lots of people in this room, and other people, have not had the benefit of the rule of law.
It has failed, failed these people, inexcusably.
We do believe in process, that’s the country we are very proud to live in.
But if the threshold is met, the evidence is there, where criminal prosecutions can be undertaken – and that those people are found guilty – I have no reservation in saying people should go to jail.
The former Post Office boss Paula Vennells, who ran the Post Office while it routinely denied there was a problem with its Horizon IT system, has already forfeited her CBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute” over her handling of the Horizon crisis.
Fujitsu’s Europe chief Paul Patterson has said it was “shameful and appalling” that courts hearing cases against post office operators over missing funds were not told of 29 bugs identified as early as 1999 in the accounting system it built.
The former chief executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, and the campaigner Alan Bates will give evidence this week as the public inquiry into the scandal enters its next phase.
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning, it should in theory be a quiet week for politics in the UK, as it is Easter recess. However there are local election campaigns ongoing in England, we are expecting a Reform UK press briefing mid-morning which is billed by them as an attack on Labour’s betrayal of the working class, Aslef’s train driver strike reaches its final day, and there is a total eclipse of the sun in North America which some people are claiming will herald the rapture, so let’s keep an open mind on where the day might lead. Here are your headlines …
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Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has said people responsible for the Horizon scandal “should go to jail”
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Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has declined again to put any timetable of paying the compensation to the Waspi campaign women recommended by an ombudsmen report
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A cross-party group of MPs is proposing to make abortion access a human right in England and Wales, putting forward legislation that would decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks
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Labour has announced plans to digitise the NHS “red book” that parents use for their children’s medical records
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The Foreign Office has been criticised as “elitist and rooted in the past” in a new report
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UK rent rises are forecast to outpace wage growth for the next three years
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People receiving the state pension will get a 8.5% increase worth an extra £900 a year to full rate claimants starting from today. Universal credit claimants will receive a 6.7% increase
It is Martin Belam here with you this week. I do try to read all your comments, and dip into them where I think I can be helpful, but if you want to get my attention the best way is to email me – martin.belam@theguardian.com – especially if you have spotted my inevitable errors and typos, or you think I’ve missed something important.
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