Jenna Moon
Reporting from the inquiry

Angela Patrick, another lawyer representing sub-postmasters, starts her round of questions.

She starts by asking Badenoch if she's familiar with Lost Chances, an organisation seeking compensation for the children of sub-postmasters.

Badenoch says she is unfamiliar with the organisation. She says she was unable to look into "specific" cases of sub-postmasters.

She repeats an earlier line: Badenoch says she wanted to "make sure we were seen to be fair and being fair" with the government's approach to the scandal.

Tom Beal
BBC Investigations journalist

Image source, PA Media

The current Post Office CEO, Nick Read, has been a regular visitor to the Post Office inquiry and is listening to evidence today.

He has heard a lot of criticism about his time heading the organisation over the last few weeks – but Kemi Badenoch says he has been given a “tough time”.

Her witness statement says what Read has dealt with “would have been exceptionally difficult for anyone”.

She goes on to write that “he did a good job in very difficult circumstances. I do not think he was a bad CEO".

According to Badenoch, the “personalised reporting” of the media has meant Read has “unfairly borne the brunt”.

But she does criticise the fact Read received a bonus for his work on the inquiry. She wrote to him to express her “disappointment”.

Read, who gave evidence for three days to the inquiry, is stepping down as CEO in March next year.

Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry

Kemi Badenoch says that, in her view, the Post Office is an organisation "bogged down in dealing with historic and current issues".

"It is hard to create a strategy for the future when the board itself and the organisation is dysfunctional," she adds.

Sam Stein KC, a lawyer representing sub-postmasters, then moves on to talk about Horizon developer Fujitsu.

He asks if Badenoch did ever a meeting with officials from the company.

"We did, but I cant remember the names of the executives that I did meet, but that did include the global CEO," Badenoch says.

"In terms of them proactively offering, which I think is what you are asking, no."

Jenna Moon
Reporting from the inquiry

Image source, Post Office Inquiry

Sam Stein KC, a representative of sub-postmasters, gets his questions rolling.

We're looking first at an evidence slide titled "Post Office Strategy".

Stein says that there was a "revolving" door of ministerial appointments in the Conservative government, and asks if Kemi Badenoch found that "any work" had been done when she became business secretary.

She says she recalls looking at compensation claims, the Horizon fallout and managing day-to-day operations.

"The strategy work... was often very, very speculative in nature," Badenoch says.

Stein charges that "it doesn't seem as though, frankly, anything [was] being done" between 2019 and her appointment. She disagrees.

Image source, Post Office Inquiry

Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry

There's laughter in the inquiry room as Jason Beer KC finishes up his round of questioning by telling Kemi Badenoch: "Those are all my questions. Thanks for answering some of them."

Next to quiz the former business secretary is Sam Stein KC who, as a reminder, is a lawyer representing sub-postmasters.

Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry

Kemi Badenoch is asked what, in her view, is essential to both keep the Post Office alive and transform it.

"This is a difficult question," Badenoch starts. "The fundamentals which underpin the Post Office are very difficult to manage in the age that we live in."

She tells the inquiry that pre-internet it had a "very easy stream of cash" and says "that is not the case".

Badenoch adds that, when in government, the Conservatives believed the Post Office had "operational and cultural significance" which should not be lost.

Jenna Moon
Reporting from the inquiry

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Badenoch says she isn't sure whether Staunton should have been removed as chair of the Post Office sooner.

"I think it's hard to carry out a significant action like that", she says.

Badenoch says that in some cases, "acting quickly" can have a negative impact on people involved - adding that a decision like sacking someone should be considered slowly.

Among some sub-postmasters and some on the Post Office board, there were individuals that weren't fond of Staunton, she adds.

We move now to a letter from Badenoch to Nigel Railton in May 2024, in which the former business secretary congratulated him on his appointment as chair of the Post Office.

The letter, Badenoch says, is a formal look at what she hoped he would do in the role.

Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry

Next, counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC refers to the written statement that I mentioned during the break.

He reads out the "specific concerns" which were put to Kemi Badenoch about former Post Office chair Henry Staunton.

The statement claims that he had...

• Repeatedly attempted to shut down a whistleblowing investigation into his conduct
• Engaged in aggressive, intimidating and disrespectful behaviour to other board members and members of the Post Office executive team
• Showed continued poor understanding of the public sector aspect of POL's work and poor judgement
• Disregarded proper governance processes as chair
• Failed to provide constructive support to the CEO

Jenna Moon
Reporting from the inquiry

Badenoch is now saying she felt more information should have been passed to her directly.

She says he gave Staunton "the benefit of the doubt" about issues with UK Government Investments (UKGI), the government body which owns the Post Office.

At the time, she says she felt Staunton was a person that had made mistakes but was trying his best.

Now, Badenoch says: "I don't think his complaints about UKGI are well founded."

Badenoch characterises the way civil service files are written as "vanilla" and says they exclude key details that could be perceived as harmful.

The former business secretary says that she prefers briefings that include "the unvarnished truth".

"As a minister who is getting 100 pieces of information a day where you have to prioritise, you might not recognise that there's a big red flag", Badenoch says.

Jason Beer KC reads out the transcript of the call between Kemi Badenoch and Henry Staunton (more detail on that in our 14:26 post).

Badenoch says her junior minister Kevin Hollinrake had meetings with Staunton, which were fed back to her.

"In hindsight, I think that he did not want to meet me," Badenoch tells the inquiry.

Continuing with the transcript, Staunton is quoted as saying he wants to make the Post Office organisation more "postmaster-centric" to signal that "the Post Office is changing".

After taking the inquiry through more of the transcript - in which Staunton is quoted as giving his view as to what to do next - Beer turns to a section in which Badenoch discusses Staunton's dismissal being leaked.

"Appalling. Appalling," Staunton says.

Image source, Post Office Inquiry

After lunch, inquiry counsel Jason Beer KC immediately launches into questions around the former Post Office chair, Henry Staunton.

Former business secretary Kemi Badenoch is asked whether she appointed Staunton to the role - she says no.

We're being taken through a transcript of a recording of a call between Badenoch and Staunton at that time that he was dismissed.

The Tory leader continues by saying she did not know the call was recorded at the time, and believes it is unlikely that Staunton was aware it was.

Badenoch adds that she thinks that it was recorded to ensure the meeting minutes were kept accurately.

Some context: Staunton and Badenoch sparred earlier this year after he was sacked from the role. The former chair said he was ordered to stall remuneration payments so the previous government could "limp into the election". Badenoch has repeatedly rejected that characterisation.

Image source, Reuters

We're resuming our coverage of the inquiry, which is returning now after a lunch break.

Kemi Badenoch - who was business secretary in the last government - is back for more questions. We've written a summary of the key lines from her testimony so far.

We are also expecting to hear from Paul Patterson, the European boss of Fujitsu - the Japanese company that developed the Horizon software - later on today. This is the second time he has been called to give evidence, having previously appeared at the inquiry in January.

You can follow along with our text updates and analysis here, and by clicking the watch live buttonat the top of the page.

Too much in government going round in circles - Badenoch tells inquirypublished at 14:00 Greenwich Mean Time 11 November

14:00 GMT 11 November

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent

Kemi Badenoch was Business Secretary for 17 months. She told the inquiry she was determined to speed up the whole process of compensation.

“What I was seeing, the way the Department [of Business and Trade] and the Post Office was going on we’d never get to the end of it. I had my own objective of making sure we did right by the sub-postmasters.”

She railed against the “bureaucracy” of Whitehall and the “absence of common sense” when it came to making decisions.

The inquiry saw an exchange of letters between Badenoch and the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in August 2023 requesting the extension of interim payments for the Group Litigation Order (GLO) compensation. But he initially rejected the idea.

She admitted the ITV drama on the Post Office scandal in January of this year changed the government’s priority of the issue.

“If you look at it in the context of what’s happening in government," she told the inquiry. "There are a thousand things that are being asked, money requested for. After a while, it just becomes another line in a ledger."

Government had to change the way it did things, she said. In her view, there was far too much going round in circles and people avoiding taking serious decisions because everybody was worried about getting into trouble later.

After lunch, we’ll be hearing how she handled the fall out from the drama as the scandal exploded to the top of the news agenda.

Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry

More from the 11-page document which I have been reading over lunch.

After Henry Staunton's departure from his role as Post Office chairman was leaked to the press, Kemi Badenoch said she and Staunton had a phone call and shared a "brief conversation".

A few weeks later, Staunton gave an interview to the Sunday Times which he said he had been told by a senior civil servant to stall pay-outs to allow the government to "limp into the election" - apparently to ease the public finances.

In return, Badenoch accused Staunton of seeking "revenge" by "making up" claims he been told to delay compensation payments for sub-postmasters affected by the Horizon IT scandal.

At the time Staunton said he stood by his comments and today Badenoch's statement insists she too stands by her remarks.

Thomas Mackintosh
Reporting from the inquiry

During the break I spent some time looking over an 11-page statement from Kemi Badenoch which relates to her decision earlier this year to fire then chairman of the Post Office Henry Staunton.

She details five "specific concerns" she says she was advised over which related to Staunton's behaviour at the time and his "suitability for office".

On 25 January Badenoch notes she had decided Staunton had to be removed from his role "without being given the opportunity to resign" and that he should leave within four days.

But, by the second day, news of Staunton's departure had been "leaked" to the press and was something that Badenoch said angered her.

"Leaks of this type debilitate government, and lead to inaccurate reporting making it more difficult to get the truth out," her statement says.

"And clearly this was not the right way for Mr Staunton to learn of my decision; I wanted to spare him any public embarrassment."

Image source, Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry/PA

We've been reporting from the Post Office inquiry since this morning, where Kemi Badenoch - who was business secretary in the last government - is giving evidence. Here are some of key lines from her testimony so far:

• When asked about her understanding of the Horizon scandal before taking the role of business secretary in 2023, she said she was vaguely aware of the issues but unfamiliar with "the full detail". She said she was the "official decision maker" within the business department
• She wanted to accelerate the compensation for postmasters but said the "government machine" allowed bureaucracy to get in the way
• Badenoch spoke of a letter she sent former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, expressing her "frustration" in the slow process of renumeration for victims - and agreed that his rejection to proposals she outlined in this letter was seen to be "initial resistance". She said the Treasury was supportive "in theory" but found it hard to move from "day-to-day behaviours"
• She accepted that the ITV four-part drama, broadcast at the start of this year, brought "the urgency" to resolve the Post Office scandal - but insisted "work was being done" before it

We'll be bringing you the latest lines once the inquiry returns from a lunch break shortly - stick with us.

While the inquiry is on its break, let's take the opportunity to look at the key dates that have brought us to this point.

• 1999: The Horizon accounting system is rolled out in Post Offices across the UK
• 2000: The first issue with the system is reported by Alan Bates, sub-postmaster of a branch in Wales
• 2003: Bates loses his job after refusing to accept responsibility for missing funds in the branch accounts
• 2004: More sub-postmasters find themselves being asked questions about missing funds - at times in the tens of thousands of pounds. Jobs are lost, some are declared bankrupt and some eventually sent to prison
• 2010: A high-profile case of wrongful conviction occurs - pregnant Surrey sub-postmaster Seema Misra is jailed after being accused of stealing £74,000
• 2012: Formal investigations into the Horizon software begin
• 2015: The Post Office halts private prosecutions of sub-postmasters
• 2017: Legal action is launched against the Post Office by a group of 555 sub-postmasters
• 2019: Post Office CEO Paula Vennells stands down, before the company agrees to pay £58m to the 555 sub-postmasters
• 2021: The public inquiry into the scandal begins
• 2023: The government announces that every wrongly convicted sub-postmaster will be offered £600,000 in compensation
• 2024: There's a resurgence of interest in the scandal after ITV releases a mini-series titled Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Vennells hands back her CBE
• 2024: The government introduces new legislation to speed up clearing victims' names and paying compensation

We've wrapped here for a lunch break. We'll be returning at 14:00 to continue with Badenoch's testimony.

Stick with us through the break and we'll bring you key lines from the inquiry when it resumes and through the afternoon. As a reminder, you can follow along by clicking watch live at the top of your page.

Kemi Badenoch accepts the ITV four-part drama which was broadcast at the start of this year brought "the urgency" to resolving the Post Office scandal.

"The ITV documentary took it from a value for money perception to a public perception question," Badenoch says.

"It is not enough to do the right thing, you also have to be seen to be doing the right thing.

"There was an assumption nothing was being done and the documentary made things happen.

"Actually work was being done. It was too slow and it wasn't happening quickly enough.

"The documentary brought the urgency and raised the prioritising."

She then accepts it is "extremely disappointing" that it took the four-part ITV drama to escalate things.

Jenna Moon
Reporting from the inquiry

Badenoch is commenting now on a ministerial order and direction to her department to make it clear that "we need to change the way we do things in government".

She says she did not issue a ministerial direction because there was no money to haggle over what the right value to pay to sub-postmasters might be.

Badenoch says she did not see her initial letter to Jeremy Hunt as "the end of the line". She felt it was "an opening move".

She says the Treasury was supportive of making sure compensation was paid "in theory" - but in practice, it was hard to "move away from their usual day-to-day behaviours".