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Selasa, 09 Januari 2024

Paula Vennells: Ex-Post Office boss handing back CBE over IT scandal - BBC

By Oliver Slow & Natasha Preskey

BBC News

Former Post Office boss Paula Vennells is handing back her CBE with immediate effect after facing mounting pressure over the Horizon IT scandal.

More than 700 sub-postmasters were prosecuted based on data from faulty Horizon software between 1999 and 2015.

Some people went to prison for false accounting and theft, while many were financially ruined.

More than a million people signed a petition calling for Ms Vennells to be stripped of her CBE.

Government ministers have promised a plan as soon as later this week to help hundreds of sub-postmasters clear their names.

One idea being explored is passing a new law that would exonerate hundreds wrongfully convicted.

In a statement, Ms Vennells, who was Post Office chief executive between 2012 and 2019, said she had "listened" to the sub-postmasters and others calling for her to return her CBE.

"I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system."

Ms Vennells has long faced questions over her role in the scandal, which has been described as one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice the UK has seen.

While the scandal has been public knowledge for some time with a public inquiry ongoing, an ITV drama - Mr Bates vs The Post Office - which aired last week thrust the issue back into the spotlight.

A public inquiry into the scandal has been under way since February 2021, and will resume on Thursday following a break over Christmas.

Fujitsu - the Japanese technology company that manufactured the Horizon system - has been invited to answer questions from MPs next week.

The Business and Trade Select Committee says Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has confirmed he will attend the evidence session on 16 January.

Ms Vennells was appointed as CBE for services to the Post Office and to charity in the 2019 New Year's Honours - despite ongoing legal action against Post Office, which was launched by 555 sub-postmasters in 2017.

During her tenure, the Post Office repeatedly denied there were problems with the Horizon system.

The Post Office said the honour was given for her work on "diversity and inclusion", and her "commitment to the social purpose at the heart of the business and her dedication in putting the customer first".

However, despite the offer by Ms Vennells, the only person who can strip someone of an honour is King Charles.

People can indicate they would like to renounce their honour, as Ms Vennells has now done - but doing so has no formal effect. Until the King is advised by the Forfeiture Committee and acts on its advice, Ms Vennells will continue to hold her CBE.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents 110,000 employees of Royal Mail (which Post Office used to be part of)said Ms Vennells' decision was "a token gesture".

CWU's national officer Andy Furey also called for her to return performance-related bonuses she received during her role at Post Office.

He said: "Since she received these bonuses while overseeing the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, it would only be right to return this money."

The options to speed up justice for sub-postmasters

Jo Hamilton, a former subpostmistress who was wrongly convicted in 2008 of stealing thousands of pounds from a village shop in Hampshire, said she was glad Ms Vennells had agreed to return the honour.

"It's a shame it took just a million people to cripple her conscience," she said.

Downing Street has said it is "obviously the right decision" for Ms Vennells to return her CBE.

Former sub-postmaster Michael Rudkin, whose wife Susan was wrongly accused of stealing £44,000, said he was pleased that Ms Vennells had chosen to return her CBE.

He said he had written personally to Ms Vennells after his wife's prosecution to ask for a further investigation into her case, and received no help.

Mr Rudkin, who lost his job and union position due to the Horizon scandal, said his family had also lost friends due to the allegations.

A CBE (Commander of the British Empire) is awarded to someone who has gone "above and beyond for the community or country".

After a damehood or knighthood, it is the highest level of Order of the British Empire, and is followed by the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), then the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire).

Number 10 also said it would support "further recognition" of the work of sub-postmaster Alan Bates and others to expose the Horizon scandal.

Will Mellor as Lee and Amy Nuttall as Lisa in Mr Bates vs the Post Office TV Show

Until 2012, the Post Office was part of Royal Mail before they were split into two. Between 2003 and 2010, the chief executive of Royal Mail was Adam Crozier who went on to lead ITV and is now chairman of BT.

He was replaced by Dame Moya Greene who ran Royal Mail for eight years, during which time the company was privatised and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013.

The government has been considering options to speed up justice for wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters.

On Tuesday, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said the idea of using legislation to quash convictions of all Post Office workers caught up in the scandalwas under "active consideration".

Former minister Nadhim Zahawi has called for a "simple bill" to quash all the remaining convictions based on "bad data".

However, others have disagreed, including former attorney general Dominic Grieve who told the BBC that it would amount to "parliamentary interference in the judicial process".

Instead, he said each case "ought to be considered on its own merits", and sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice.

The scandal has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, but to date only 93 convictions have been overturned and of them, just 30 people have agreed "full and final" compensation settlements, meaning many victims are still fighting to clear their names.

Some 54 cases have resulted in either a conviction being upheld, people being refused permission to appeal, or the person appealing having withdrawn from the process.

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2024-01-09 17:51:55Z
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Writer of Post Office scandal TV drama ‘astounded’ by reaction - The Guardian

The writer of the ITV drama about a scandal that ruined hundreds of Post Office workers’ lives has said she is “completely astounded” by the response over the past week.

Gwyneth Hughes, who spent three years working on the four-part drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, said the team behind it were gratified and amazed, and “the postmasters are ecstatic”.

The response has included a statement in parliament on Monday and more than 1 million members of the public signing a petition demanding the former Post Office boss Paula Vennells be stripped of her CBE.

Hughes said: “None of us expected this. I thought it was quite a niche story which would get respectable viewing figures but I was completely wrong.”

But, she added, it was not a personal triumph. “I’m thrilled about it on every level, but it’s been a massive team effort, a team that includes hundreds of postmasters.”

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office accused about 3,500 operators of theft, fraud and false accounting based on information from its Horizon IT system installed in the late 1990s. More than 700 were prosecuted, despite the Post Office knowing from 2010 that there were faults in the software.

The Skipton-based writer was aware of news stories about the Horizon computer system when ITV asked her to write a drama about it.

“It was really up my street – ordinary people outside London. My early conversations with postmasters were on Zoom because we were still in the pandemic, but as soon as it was possible to get on the road I went trailing all round the country, all sort of out of the way places, to meet these really lovely people, not a single one of whom deserves what’s happened to them.”

She concentrated on the stories of eight operators of 555 who eventually joined civil litigation against the Post Office. As well as powerful human stories, Hughes “crashed into massive complexities of the financial, technical, legal issues”.

She said she was determined to tell a fact-based story. “It says at the beginning [of each episode], this is a true story. And if you make that promise to the audience, you better tell them a true story.”

Making a complex drama spanning more than 20 years accessible and watchable was a challenge, said Hughes. “Luckily I’m an old lady [69] and I’ve been doing this for a long time. If I’d been less experienced, it would have defeated me.

“I had to bring everything I’ve learned as a journalist and documentary film-maker, and for the last 25 years as a dramatist, every single aspect of everything I’ve learned into play to make it work.”

She has become friends with the post office operators whose stories she told. “Alan [Bates, the man who started the campaign] has a tiny house, not like the one in the drama … full of files and boxes and he can find anything. You ask him a question and he doggedly goes off and spends all afternoon looking for the letter or whatever. He was very involved all the way through.

“Jo [Hamilton, who was falsely accused of stealing £36,000], less so – but I bothered her constantly, rang her a lot and went to see her a lot.”

If a decision was made in the coming months to allow all appeals against convictions, it would be “fabulous – but that’s a small number of people. There were 555 in the civil litigation, and the big thing is to get financial redress. That’s not even under discussion at the moment.”

Vennells, who left the Post Office in 2019, declined to meet Hughes when she was writing the drama. Hughes said: “We don’t know who in the Post Office were the individual bad guys but what we do know is that as a result of groupthink and confirmation bias, the institution as a whole is guilty of appalling cruelty and lying.” And the scandal was a “massive collective failure” by all political parties.

Drama had the power of “direct visceral appeal” to audiences, Hughes added. “It’s for reaching out across the stage or through the screen, grabbing you by the throat and saying: care about me. And when it works, it’s incredibly powerful. In this case, it’s been put to the service of this terrible event in our country’s history. If you want to really get people’s attention, tell them a story. And in this case, a true story.”

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2024-01-09 12:15:00Z
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UK weather: England remains on flood alert as temperatures dip - The Guardian

More than 100 flood warnings remain in place after last week’s Storm Henk deluge as large parts of the UK endured a cold, frosty morning.

The Environment Agency (EA) said there were 126 flood warnings in England where flooding is expected, including a flood warning on the River Thames south-west of London in Wraysbury.

Most of the warnings are in the south of England and the Midlands, particularly through Reading, Slough, Oxford, Salisbury and further north in Cheltenham and Peterborough.

There are also 136 flood alerts in place throughout the same areas where flooding is possible.

Temperatures dropped as low as -1C in Birmingham, 0C in Glasgow and 1C in London overnight. An amber cold health alert for north-west, south-west and south-east England as well as the Midlands remains in place until noon on Friday.

The amber alert, issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), means “cold weather impacts are likely to be felt across the whole health service for an extended period of time”.

A Met Office yellow warning for ice in southern England expired at 3am.

The Met Office said there were snow flurries throughout Monday evening in the south of England into the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said that not much of the snow appeared to have settled, with some areas seeing a “dusting of maybe one centimetre or two of snow”.

He said Tuesday would be drier with limited snowfall, apart from some wintry showers in Cornwall. “We’re not expecting much in the way of further snowfall on Tuesday,” he said. “In actual fact, it will be much sunnier than today, particularly in the south compared with Monday.”

Morgan said a blast of cold air coming down from the north, mostly affecting Scotland, was likely to bring further cold conditions over the weekend with some snow showers.

Train services warned customers to be careful when using their services due to icy conditions but there were no reports of major disruptions.

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2024-01-09 08:08:00Z
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Post Office scandal: Options considered speed up justice for victims - BBC

A stock image shows a 'Post Office' sign on the exterior wall of a branch

By Sam Francis

Political reporter, BBC News

Plans to fast-track appeals of hundreds of sub-postmasters affected by the Post Office IT scandal will be announced "very shortly", a minister said.

Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake told MPs it was investigating ways to overturn convictions, which could include possible legislation.

More than 700 people got criminal convictions because of faulty software but only 93 have had them overturned.

He indicated more information should be given by the end of the week.

Mr Hollinrake also suggested that Fujitsu - the technology company behind the software that caused the scandal - and anyone else found to be responsible should be "held accountable including making any payments" towards victims' compensation.

On Monday, Mr Hollinrake met Justice Secretary Alex Chalk to discuss what he called "one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our history".

"We have devised some options for resolving the outstanding criminal convictions with much more pace," the minister said.

But he added, Mr Chalk would "need to speak to senior figures in the judiciary about these options before we put them forward".

He said the pair had discussed "at length" the possibility of changing the law in order to deal with those who are still waiting to clear their names.

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of one a week - based on information from a computer system called Horizon.

Many maintained their innocence and said they had repeatedly raised issues with Horizon.

But some went to prison for false accounting and theft. Many were financially ruined.

The scandal was the subject of an ITV drama broadcast last week that has catapulted it back into public consciousness.

The Metropolitan Police has said it is investigating the Post Office over possible fraud offences arising from the prosecutions.

The government is also looking at changing the rules around private prosecutions, after the Post Office pursued its former employees through the courts.

Campaigners called for the Post Office to be prevented from taking part in appeals against the convictions of former sub-postmasters.

Sir Keir Starmer has called for the Post Office to be stripped of its prosecution powers and for previous convictions looked at again.

"I think that the prosecution should be taken out of the hands of the Post Office and given to the Crown Prosecution Service," he said.

"And these convictions, the remaining convictions, need to be looked at en masse."

The government also announced retired judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom would chair an independent panel overseeing compensation payments to those whose convictions have been overturned.

Two former justice secretaries have called for legislation to be brought in as soon as possible.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the justice secretary under Tony Blair, said the government could introduce new laws "tomorrow and there would be no resistance in parliament".

"It's an absolutely shocking scandal that's been there for years and years, and now it's at the top of the political agenda.

"Everyone agrees it will take years to get rid of those other convictions unless there is a change in procedure."

In a letter to The Times, Sir Robert Buckland, Mr Chalk's predecessor, said: "Too many sub-postmasters have already died without seeing justice being done, so there is no more time to be lost."

Speaking in the House of Commons, Sir Robert said he would support a new law to "create a presumption of innocence" for those convicted due to the faulty software.

However, former attorney general Dominic Grieve said new legislation would be a form of "parliamentary interference in the judicial process".

"It's a short cut, which may leave some people dissatisfied that they haven't really been fully exonerated," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Some have called for the Criminal Cases Review Commission - which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice - to look at the cases, a process that would take longer than introducing new legislation.

Prof Graham Zellick, former chair of the CCRC, said he believed the body would be able to deal with cases quickly, because of the "common feature" in them - that the prosecution case depended on evidence obtained from the computer system.

"Once you identify that the conviction is clearly, manifestly unsafe, and has to be quashed, and that's why the court of appeal can deal with these cases very quickly," he told the Today programme.

'Keep the momentum '

Alan Bates, a former sub-postmaster who has led efforts for justice, told the BBC he believed a "resolution" was "closer".

Mr Bates, played by Toby Jones in the ITV drama, said the years it had taken to get to this point had been "frustrating", but added the ITV show had enabled a "broader audience" to understand what happened.

"The most important thing is for government to make sure that this financial redress goes through at speed to get it there as soon as possible, not wait, not spend money with lawyers time and time again," he said.

"We still have to keep the pressure on and we have got to push people and we've got to get the whole thing moving and keep the momentum.

"The group has lost 60 or 70 people since we started all this. People need to get on with lives, they need to be able to draw a line under it - they will never forget it, but they have got to be able to get on and unfortunately they do need money to keep them going.

"This money is only what they are owed. This is money to put them back in a position what they would have been had Post Office not done what they did to them."

Stripping titles

There has also been a campaign to strip former Post Office boss Paula Vennells of her CBE over the scandal.

Ms Vennells, who was Post Office chief executive between 2012 and 2019, has been urged to forfeit her honour.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's official spokesman said: "The prime minister shares the public's feeling of outrage on this issue. He would strongly support the Forfeiture Committee if it chose to review the case."

The Forfeiture Committee can recommend honours are stripped if a person has brought the system into disrepute.

Ms Vennells has said previously that she remained "truly sorry for the suffering caused to wrongly prosecuted sub-postmasters and their families".

She also said she continued to fully support and focus on co-operating with the ongoing public inquiry into the scandal.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has also faced fresh scrutiny over his role as postal affairs minister during the coalition government.

His predecessor Sir Vince Cable, who was business secretary during that period, told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme Sir Ed was being made a "scapegoat".

Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

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Senin, 08 Januari 2024

UK weather: Snow hits south-east England as cold snap takes hold - BBC

A person walking through a snow flurry in Lenham, Kent, on Monday

By Oliver Slow

BBC News

Snow has started falling in parts of the UK, as the country braces for a week-long cold snap.

South-east England will see a mix of snow, sleet and rain during Monday, BBC Weather says.

The Met Office has warned of ice and snow across southern England and Wales later, which could cause travel disruption.

Flooding could also continue, mainly in central England, the Environment Agency said.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for ice for southern England and southern Wales, from 15:00 Monday until 03:00 on Tuesday. It warns that ice and small amounts of snow "could lead to slippery surfaces in new places" and potentially slower journeys.

BBC Weather forecaster Stav Danaos said north-east England will see light rain, light sleet and snow over hills, while south-east England will experience wintry showers and "a light dusting of snow", even in lower areas.

The Met Office said "a mix of sleet and snow showers" will move in from the east, with temperatures reaching "near zero".

"Given these wintry showers, and also wet surfaces after recent wet weather, some icy patches are likely on untreated surfaces," the forecaster added.

Temperatures are expected to drop heavily on Monday night. The Met Office said parts of England and Wales could reach -4C, while northern Scotland could see temperatures as low as -7C.

On Monday, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Met Office issued an amber cold weather warning for the south-west, south-east, West Midlands, East Midlands and north-west regions of England until 12:00 on Friday.

An amber alert means that the impact of cold weather is likely to be felt across the whole health service for an extended period of time.

A yellow cold weather warning until Friday for other parts of England remains in place.

Dr Agostinho Sousa, from UKHSA, stressed the importance of checking on those who could be vulnerable.

For older people in particular, cold weather can increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia and worsening arthritis. There can also be an increase in accidents at home, due to a loss of strength and dexterity in the hands.

Cars parked during a snow flurry in Lenham, Kent

Snow falls near Maidstone in Kent on Monday

A yellow warning for ice was also issued for parts of Northern Ireland, with the Met Office warning of potentially difficult travelling conditions caused by icy patches on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths.

Police have urged road users to exercise caution.

"Stick to main, gritted roads when possible. Slow down, and increase your braking distance from the vehicle in front," a Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesperson said.

Nick Powell, from the AA, said anyone travelling in extreme weather conditions should check the condition of tyres - including the spare - and fully de-ice the car, which includes clearing snow from windows, lights and the roof "so you can see and be seen".

"It's also worth having winter essentials in the car such as warm, waterproof layers, a shovel, a torch, and a flask of hot drink", he said, while phones should also be fully charged.

"The cold snap is also likely to impact vehicle breakdown levels, with faults such as flat batteries and frozen windscreen wipers," he said.

How is the weather affecting you? Get in touch.

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Meanwhile, the Environment Agency (EA) has said "significant river flooding impacts" are expected on Monday in parts of the Midlands, Lincolnshire and on the River Thames.

EA flood duty manager Katharine Smith urged people not to drive through flood water, and to follow advice of local emergency services on the roads.

"Flood water is often deeper than it looks and just 30cm (11in) of flowing water is enough to float your car," she said.

The warning follows a week of heavy rainfall last week, some of which came as part of Storm Henk.

The EA warned that more than 1,800 properties have already flooded, and more could be affected over the next week as river levels rise.

More than 150 flood warnings are currently in place, mainly in southern and central England. One flood warning is also in place in Wales, near the River Ritec at Tenby.

Thousands of homes and businesses are at risk of flooding in Surrey due to rising water levels of the River Thames, while an MP in Oxford has said the wait for a flood alleviation scheme is "frustrating" after parts of the city were submerged after Storm Henk last week.

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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the government's response to flooding is not "good enough", and said his party would have established a task force earlier in the year to tackle the problem.

"The response wasn't quick enough. So I just don't think it's good enough for the government to come after the event again and express sympathy," Mr Starmer told reporters on a visit to the East Midlands on Monday morning.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited flood-hit communities and EA workers in Oxford on Sunday, saying that "touch wood, we're past the worst of it".

He said the government had invested record figures in flood defences, which had helped to protect homes.

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Post Office scandal: Former minister calls for mass appeal against convictions - BBC.com

By Nick Edser, Michael Race & Chris MasonBBC News

AFP A supporter celebrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, on April 23, 2021, following a court ruling clearing subpostmasters of convictions for theft and false accounting.

AFP

Hundreds of sub-postmasters convicted in the Post Office Horizon scandal should be able to submit a mass appeal, a former cabinet minister has said.

Sir David Davis, who is seeking to question ministers about the issue, told the BBC there was "no real reason" why there could not be a "mass case".

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has also said all cases need to be revisited.

Ministers are meeting on Monday to consider ways of clearing the names of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 Post Office branch managers were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud based on the faulty Horizon software.

Some sub-postmasters wrongfully went to prison, many were financially ruined. Some have since died.

It has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, but to date, fewer than 100 people have had their convictions overturned.

While the scandal has been public knowledge for some time, an ITV drama - Mr Bates vs The Post Office - which aired last week has thrust the issue back into the spotlight.

Speaking to the BBC, Sir David said the drama had galvanised the response to the scandal. "There are now tens of millions of people who care about this - care a lot. They're furious in many cases."

At present, all cases are considered individually, but Sir David said: "All of the cases depend on one single lie, and that is nobody but the postmasters and mistresses could access their computers. We now know that to be untrue. I see no real reason, no logical reason you can't have a mass case, mass appeal on that basis."

Sir David and Labour MP Kevan Jones are among those hoping to scrutinise a minister in the House of Commons, which is reassembling on Monday for the first time since the Christmas recess.

Sir Keir Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, has said that all convictions need to be looked at again, and prosecution powers should be taken away from the Post Office.

The Post Office had the power in England and Wales to decide on bringing the original prosecutions, and its appointed lawyers presented the evidence in court. The situation is different in Scotland and in Northern Ireland.

Sir Keir said: "I used to run the Crown Prosecution Service, we've prosecuted for other departments, we can do it here - that should be done straightaway.

"And these convictions, the remaining convictions need to be looked at en masse."

The Post Office - which is wholly owned by the government - acted as the prosecutor when it brought the cases against its sub-postmasters.

A petition calling for the former Post Office chief executive, Paula Vennells, to lose her CBE over the scandal has received more than one million signatures.

Tracy Felstead and Janet Skinner, sub-postmistresses who were both jailed in connection with the scandal, told the BBC Ms Vennells should relinquish her CBE.

"To be fair, and if she had any decency she would just hand it back," Ms Skinner said.

Ms Vennells has said previously that she remains "truly sorry for the suffering caused to wrongly prosecuted sub-postmasters and their families".

She said: "I continue to fully support and focus on co-operating with the [public] inquiry and it would be inappropriate for me to comment further while it remains ongoing."

Janet Skinner (left) and Tracy Felstead (right) were both victims of the scandal

Ms Felstead also said she would like to see "someone held accountable".

"We were classed as criminals by the Post Office," she said. "Now it is their turn to be investigated and find out who knew what, why and when this all happened."

Many victims of the scandal are still fighting to have their convictions overturned or to secure full compensation after being forced to pay out thousands of pounds of their own money for shortfalls that were caused by the faulty software. The Metropolitan Police is now investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences arising from the prosecutions.

On Monday, the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board renewed a call for all Post Office staff wrongly accused of theft and false accounting to have their convictions overturned.

Its chairman, Prof Chris Hodges, told the BBC that "a civilised state should overturn these convictions and deliver compensation with people having to do as little as possible".

He also argued that overturning all convictions would not encroach upon the independence of the judiciary

"This is not a situation in which anyone would complain that the government is breaching anyone's human rights," said Prof Hodges.

He added that he would be "very surprised" if the judiciary "weren't as angry and indeed embarrassed about the situation as we all are, so I don't think that there is a constitutional issue".

Last month, Prof Hodges said that while "a small minority" were "doubtless genuinely guilty of something", it would be "worth acquitting a few guilty people (who have already been punished) in order to deliver justice to the majority".

However, former sub-postmistress Ms Felstead told the BBC that while the process of helping former sub-postmasters needed to be sped up, she cautioned against a mass exoneration.

"I think we need to be really careful that we're not just going to go and turn everybody's convictions over just in case you have that one person that has committed a crime and you've just turned over their conviction," she said.

ITV/REX/Shutterstock

ITV's drama has thrown the Post Office scandal back into the spotlight

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the BBC on Sunday it was "right that we find every which way we can do to try to make this right for the people who were so wrongfully treated at the time".

As a result of renewed anger following the ITV series, a meeting between Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and the Minister for the Post Office, Kevin Hollinrake, has been brought forward by a week.

They will meet on Monday afternoon to explore mechanisms to speed up the process.

Mr Sunak has said the government is reviewing options, including stripping the Post Office of its role in the appeal process.

There has been concern within government that the quashing of convictions and getting compensation to those who were victims of a miscarriage of justice has been far too slow.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Sunak said the government was looking at how to speed up the compensation process.

"We will do everything we can to make this right for the people affected," he said.

To date, of the 93 convictions that have been overturned, only 30 of those people have agreed "full and final settlements".

Meanwhile, 54 cases have resulted in either a conviction being upheld, people being refused permission to appeal, or the person appealing having withdrawn from the process, according to the Post Office.

A public inquiry into the scandal is ongoing.

A Post Office spokesperson has previously said it shares the "aims of the public inquiry to get to the truth of what went wrong in the past and establish accountability".

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