It's been a busy day of evidence into the facts surrounding the Post Office scandal, with a Commons committee hearing and inquiry session running concurrently.

You can find out what happened at the inquiry here, and here's a reminder of what was said to MPs at that Business and Trade select committee hearing:

• Dr Neil Hudgell, who represented victims of the Horizon scandal, confirmed that most had received some sort of interim compensation but only three people had been "fully paid out"

• Alan Bates, one of the most prominent victims of the scandal, said he felt frustrated "to put it mildly" because there is "no reason why full redress to all victims shouldn't have been given by now"
• Jo Hamilton, another outspoken victim, gave a powerful testimony and said trying to get compensation from the Post Office felt "like being treated like a criminal all over again"
• Fujitsu executive Paul Patterson apologised for the firm's role in "this appalling miscarriage of justice" and said the firm has a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme
• Both Patterson and Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, frustrated the committee members who called out a lack of answers and knowledge of the events on their part

• Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake said he hoped everyone entitled to compensation would receive it by August

• The Department of Business and Trade's suspicion is that the final compensation bill will be "north of £1bn", Hollinrake said

We're going to close our live coverage now, but you can read our news story here. Today's page was brought to you by Aoife Walsh, Marita Moloney, Holly Wallis, Fiona Nimoni, Barbara Tasch, Sam Hancock, Zoe Conway, Emma Simpson and Damian Grammaticas. Thanks for joining us.

Four findings to take note of after minister's questioningpublished at 14:50 Greenwich Mean Time 16 January

14:50 GMT 16 January

Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent at the committee hearing

The MPs at the select committee secured answers from Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake to the questions that their earlier session identified.

First the scope of this scandal. The government knows it will grow considerably. But Hollinrake was a bit reluctant when asked if he’d consider extending compensation to a wider group of those affected, spouses, children, extended family members, whose material and mental well-being has all suffered because of the Post Office pursuing its sub-postmasters.

“There is nervousness about that... it would hugely increase the scope and complexity,” he said.

Second, the financial impact. This could all cost £1bn. Hollinrake told the committee: “I know the facts... we have to calculate what we think the impact will be, and that figure is set at the moment at a billion pounds”. The fact all convictions are being overturned means a higher compensation bill as anyone cleared can claim a higher sum. Ouch.

Image source, PA Media

Third, timings. We will see the draft law to overturn convictions in weeks, even as the details are hammered out a draft bill could be presented. The minister is aiming for "cheques in the bank" by August. But he did say that’s a "goal" and the prime minister’s office has said the aim is by the end of the year.

And who will pay? The taxpayer. But the government will seek to recover money from any identified by the inquiry as having had a role, including Fujitsu, to make sure what they stump up will be “commensurate” with their role in the scandal.

Expect a lot of pressure on the government to deliver. And a lot of questions about where the blame and the cost should fall.

The former sub-postmaster, Mr Bates, who came to fame when portrayed in an ITV drama with his name in the title has given evidence to MPs about the Post Office scandal.

Addressing the Business and Trade Committee, Alan Bates said he was “frustrated to put it mildly” over the lack of financial redress.

The founder of the Justice for Sub Postmasters Alliance said it has “gone on for far too long” and he was waiting for his first offer.

Zoe Conway
Employment correspondent at the Post Office inquiry

In Bracknell, Berkshire, sat a team of three Fujitsu employees whose job it was to harvest data. It sounds so innocuous, yet what they were doing would have a devastating impact on hundreds of Post Office workers.

The data they were collecting was faulty, memos reveal senior staff knew it was faulty and yet it was being used to convict sub-postmasters of fraud and false accounting.

Rajbinder Sangha joined the team in 2010. She was asked by counsel whether she had ever been given training as to how all of this data was being used in the courts. She says she wasn’t.

It seems there were never any conversations about the human impact their work was having.

In fact the only concerns about the faulty data seemed to be around the financial consequences for Fujitsu of failing in their contractual obligations to the Post Office.

We were shown no memos that revealed any soul searching by the Bracknell team about what was happening to the Post Office workers.

Why does a Japanese company play such a key role in the UK’s IT infrastructure?published at 14:13 Greenwich Mean Time 16 January

14:13 GMT 16 January

Mariko Oi
Asia Business Correspondent

Let’s go back to Fujitsu's takeover of the British firm, ICL, which developed the Horizon software.

For decades, both Fujitsu Japan and ICL had strong ties to their own governments. In the 1980s, ICL had financial issues. At the time, Fujitsu was on a shopping spree and the takeover allowed it to have an outsized presence in the UK. A perfect match.

According to some former employees, Fujitsu UK was ICL with a new name because Japanese firms often allow their international subsidiaries to do their own things. I was also told Fujitsu UK's former boss had a slogan of "Keep Japan Out".

That is partly why the Japanese headquarters - whom I have been chasing since 2022 - have always said that this is a matter for its UK subsidiary. Even a former president didn’t know anything about Horizon when we spoke to him.

The Post Office scandal is still not a widely known issue in Japan because local media has hardly covered it until now. Those who learned of the crisis are asking if Fujitsu was just unlucky to have bought ICL. But others see similarities with recent technical glitches Fujitsu's systems have caused in Japan.

As of now, the headquarters remain tight-lippeddespite my repeated requests to interview the company’s global president, Takahito Tokita.

Earlier at the committee hearing, we heard Fujitsu executive Paul Patterson say the firm provided evidence that helped in the prosecutions of sub-postmasters, for which it is "truly sorry”.

He told the panel he was “personally appalled” by what had been heard at the inquiry so far, and that the firm today was now “quite different to the company in the early 2000s”.

A lot of questions for Fujitsu went unansweredpublished at 13:58 Greenwich Mean Time 16 January

13:58 GMT 16 January

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent at the committee hearing

A scandal over 25 years, and just over half an hour to ask Fujitsu, finally, for some answers.

The firm has been under mounting pressure on helping to foot the compensation bill.

Paul Patterson, its European chief, said repeatedly this would happen - once the inquiry had finished. But a lot of questions went unanswered.

For instance, why didn’t Fujitsu do anything as sub-postmasters were pursued and prosecuted? “Who knew what and when... I just don’t know”.

He said he wished he did but that was now the job of the public inquiry to find out .

Colletta Smith
Cost of living correspondent

As I continued to watch the select committee hearing with Scott Darlington, who's among the victims of the Post Office scandal, he commented specifically on Paul Patterson, the European boss of Fujitsu.

It was Fujitsu's faulty Horizon software that led to the wrongful conviction of Post Office managers.

“The guy seems to be quite open in questioning, not obstructive," Scott says. "The fact they’re willing to throw money in the pot is a positive.

"Whether it increases our compensation package or just decreases what the Post Office has to pay, time will tell.

Colletta Smith
Cost of living correspondent

I watched the select committee hearing with Scott Darlington, a victim of the Post Office scandal.

I asked him what it’s like seeing bosses being questioned. “It’s about time," he says.

"It’s great to see the screw being turned on the people in charge. It’s been 15 years since those screws were turned on me.

"I had to answer impossible questions, I was under suspicion straight away, presumed guilty."

He goes on to say: "I just hope it leads to real change."

Asked if he'd like to meet Nick Read, the current chief executive of the Post Office, he says it would be "too late" for an in-person apology.

"If they’d have said sorry a year after what happened that would have been different."

Commenting on Read's answers to MPs this morning, he says: "He likes to bat off every question."

Simon Jack
Business editor

The Fujitsu chief executive, Paul Patterson, told the committee that the company was aware there were bugs and defects in the Horizon system from an early stage after its rollout in 1999.

He said that Fujitsu assisted and provided information to the Post Office for the purpose of the private prosecutions of post masters.

Patterson said that his company documented and communicated to the Post Office that post office accounts could be accessed and altered remotely - something the Post office specifically denied later.

Neither the Post Office nor Fujitsu can identify who told former Post Office boss Paula Vennells that the Horizon system was "like Fort Knox".

Patterson accepted that there is a "moral responsibility" for them to provide financial compensation to the victims.

The Commons business select committee has now finished up after questioning stakeholders over compensation for victims of the Post Office scandal for more than three hours.

We'll bring you analysis of what we heard, as well as an update on what was said at the Post Office inquiry while the committee hearing was under way.

As the hearing moves towards its final questions, Hollinrake is asked whether the Japanese tech giant Fujitsu should have to contribute to the compensation bill.

"We should expect people who have contributed to the scandal do contribute financially," he says.

The Department of Business and Trade's suspicion is that the final compensation bill will be "north of £1bn", the minister adds.

The minister is asked why the government still uses Horizon, given all the known issues.

Hollinrake says it's simply the "least worst option". Being one of the biggest IT systems in Europe if not the world, it is significant to replace.

The cost of replacing it is around £270m and it's being rebuilt to get people off Horizon as soon as possible, he says.

But he adds the system being used now is far more reliable than previous versions - the difficulties have been resolved.

It's something the Post Office wants to move away from, he says, and the government is providing funding to do this.

It’s put to Hollinrake that post offices were family businesses and people have died and marriages ended over this scandal. He is asked what will he do to ensure postmasters' families are fairly and rightfully compensated.

Hollinrake says compensation will be paid to families and that the government has been talking to the advisory board about this.

“I'll be honest, there's a nervousness around directly compensating family members” he says, because it would hugely increase the scope and complexity and cost of compensation schemes.

“It wouldn’t be an easy thing to do to open it up to family members,” Hollinrake says.

Hollinrake is asked about mass overturning of convictions.

He admits there is a chance that people who are guilty of something will be compensated, but it's a risk that has to be taken because "it's the only way".

It is put to Hollinrake that the postmasters were viewed as little people - and that there was an unequal relationship between them and the powerful Post Office.

He is asked how government can ensure that this doesn't reoccur in future organisations.

He says it happens right across the system and it's something that needs to be looked at very carefully. For example, he says, within the legal process, courts can often side with larger entities rather than the person trying to defend themselves.

He says there are many questions to answer on this.

Hollinrake says this issue would have been resolved earlier if they had been more challenging earlier on, adding “we all make mistakes” and that they could have done better.

He is also asked why the government didn't challenge the Post Office more on why no one reacted to the quickly increasing number of postmasters being convicted.

He says his guess is that people thought it was great to have a system that allowed them to identify people that were stealing from them.

He says this would have been understandable at the time, but as an outcry began questions should have been asked and answered.

The inquiry has finished but the committee hearing is continuing, with Hollinrake still taking the panel's questions.

He is asked now about compensation schemes set up by the government for those caught up in the scandal.

He says the offer of a fixed-sum award can be suitable for lots of people because it enables those with lower level claims to draw a line under the process - and it also shortens the queue for others.

But he adds that no amount of compensation will make up for what happened in the past.

Read more on the schemes available here.

Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry

Back at the inquiry, today's hearing finished with a lawyer from Howe+Co, a firm representing more than 100 former sub-postmasters and postmistresses affected by this scandal, asking questions.

Sam Stein KC asked Rajbinder Sangha whether she thought her job from 2010-16 - as one of Fujitsu's fraud and litigation support officers - was a "very serious" one, and if the data she was in charge of harvesting from Post Office branches and sending on to the Post Office could have a "serious impact".

She said "no" but, when asked if that's now changed, bearing in mind everything that's happened since then, said "yes, that's fair".

When the inquiry's chair draws today's session to a close, lawyers rise to chat to one another and the few victims here leave the room at a much quicker rate than they did last week.

The inquiry resumes at 10am and everyone seems to want as much fresh air as possible before returning to hear from more Fujitsu employees tomorrow.

Image source, House of Commons

Hollinrake is asked when all those who need redress will receive it.

“We hope by August,” the minister responds, and lists the various compensation schemes, saying there's a lot of moving parts, which they don’t all have control over.

He says they try to expedite it whenever possible.

He says 2,700 cases have been settled so far, which represents 64% of all claimants.