Plans to clear the names of hundreds of post office operators wrongly convicted in the Horizon IT scandal will be announced “imminently”, a government minister has said.
The postal services minister, Kevin Hollinrake, said ministers were “definitely not ruling out” emergency legislation to quash all the convictions that arose from the Horizon scandal.
Rishi Sunak could seize the opportunity and use the first prime minister’s questions of the year to set out his plan for how the government will exonerate hundreds of post office operators who were accused of swindling money as a result of the flawed computer system.
Hollinrake said an announcement on the scandal could “possibly” be made today, telling the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “I can’t speculate on that because there are still some issues we’ve got to resolve,” but he had said earlier that a plan was “imminent” as the government believed it had a solution.
“We’re very, very close,” he said, refusing to “speculate” as to whether an announcement would come as soon as Wednesday afternoon.
The minister claimed the government had always been operating with a “sense of urgency” over compensation for victims of the Horizon scandal before the ITV show dramatising the scandal had aired.
He admitted that since the drama had been broadcast at least 130 people affected by the Horizon scandal had come forward directly to him or via solicitors.
When asked if there was evidence that the government had been working to quash convictions before the ITV drama, Hollinrake said: “It’s not something we’d put in public, the kind of deliberations we have in government about different options, and clearly this is not an option where the postal affairs minister can make a decision on his own.”
He added that if legislation was brought forward to overturn convictions “en bloc” it could be seen to be “interfering with the independent courts process”.
Bob Neill, the Conservative chair of the Commons justice committee, said on Tuesday that if the government were to publish a bill to quash all the Post Office convictions, the justice secretary should check with senior judges to ensure they agreed that the normal means for speeding up and grouping appeals could not deliver justice within an “acceptable timeframe”.
Hollinrake noted on Wednesday that 980 people had been convicted after a fault in the Fujitsu-made IT system.
David Jones, a Tory former cabinet minister, called on ministers to review their decision to continue awarding contracts to the company. “I have no idea why the government is continuing to give Fujitsu contracts – very, very big contracts,” he said. “I can’t understand why the government wants to continue to deal with them.”
Paula Vennells, who was chief executive of the Post Office during the crisis, said on Tuesday she would return her CBE over the scandal.
Vennells is just one of the high-profile figures who have been caught up in the scandal since the TV drama first aired on 1 January. The Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, and other former postal affairs ministers have come under scrutiny and, increasingly, senior figures at the technology company Fujitsu, which has been called to testify next week in front of the Commons business committee.
Tories were attacking Davey over the Horizon scandal because of the “advances he is making in the blue wall”, his party’s leader in Scotland said.
Davey served as postal affairs minister while in the coalition government between 2010 and 2012 and has been accused of having “fobbed off” post office operators affected by the Horizon scandal.
The Scottish Lib Dem leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said Davey should not stand down, despite increasing pressure from politicians and some of those affected by the scandal.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS91ay1uZXdzLzIwMjQvamFuLzEwL3Bvc3Qtb2ZmaWNlLWhvcml6b24tc2NhbmRhbC1wbGFucy1jbGVhci1uYW1lcy12aWN0aW1zLWFubm91bmNlZC1pbW1pbmVudGx50gF6aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAudGhlZ3VhcmRpYW4uY29tL3VrLW5ld3MvMjAyNC9qYW4vMTAvcG9zdC1vZmZpY2UtaG9yaXpvbi1zY2FuZGFsLXBsYW5zLWNsZWFyLW5hbWVzLXZpY3RpbXMtYW5ub3VuY2VkLWltbWluZW50bHk?oc=5
2024-01-10 08:53:00Z
CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS91ay1uZXdzLzIwMjQvamFuLzEwL3Bvc3Qtb2ZmaWNlLWhvcml6b24tc2NhbmRhbC1wbGFucy1jbGVhci1uYW1lcy12aWN0aW1zLWFubm91bmNlZC1pbW1pbmVudGx50gF6aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAudGhlZ3VhcmRpYW4uY29tL3VrLW5ld3MvMjAyNC9qYW4vMTAvcG9zdC1vZmZpY2UtaG9yaXpvbi1zY2FuZGFsLXBsYW5zLWNsZWFyLW5hbWVzLXZpY3RpbXMtYW5ub3VuY2VkLWltbWluZW50bHk
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