New legislation expected 'within weeks', minister says
House of CommonsCopyright: House of Commons
Kevin Hollinrake, the minister responsible for the Post Office, is now appearing in front of the committee.
He has just been asked what his goals for the new legislation are, and when he thinks the bill will be introduced.
Hollinrake says he has tried to get compensation out as quickly and fairly as possible, and wants to "hold people to account".
"We can't get money to people unless we overturn convictions", he says.
Pushed to give a time frame, he says the legislation should be expected "within weeks".
Post Office 'would not block NDAs from being broken', Read says
Read is asked now if the Post Office still uses non disclosure agreements (NDAs).
"Not to my knowledge," he responds.
Read is asked whether the Post Office would block NDAs made in the past being broken.
Read says no, and that people should come forward and say exactly what they need to say.
Frustration over Read's response to committee questions
Back at the select committee, Read
is now asked if before 2015 there were any mentions of possible problems with
Horizon in documents he had seen. He acquiesces and adds that those documents were
submitted to the inquiry.
Asked
whether Parliament was misled, he says he cannot comment, but then adds that individuals were prosecuted on the basis of information that may be erroneous.
He is asked whether he would have told this committee that all prosecutions were sound in
2015, having seen what he has now seen. He says more context is required and
that the inquiry will get to bottom of details.
Asked
if the culture at the Post Office at time was to cover up failings, Read says he
cannot comment on this.
The MP presses him, saying that having read the
minutes and documents showing that there was knowledge that the system was
unsound, “you can’t say it was wrong to say in 2015 that all prosecutions were
sound?”
Read
reiterates there is an issue that needs to be addressed, and that the inquiry
will do this.
The
MP appears frustrated with Read's responses and asks whether he is using
the inquiry to “not be curious”.
“My
job is to make sure that redress is speedily delivered to our victims, and most
importantly that I run the Post Office of today,” Read says.
Groans when Fujitsu employee tells inquiry she 'can't remember'
Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry
Here at the inquiry (which is separate to the select committee), a phrase that's been used more than once today is "I can't remember".
Chair Sir Wyn Williams, appearing today via a remote video link, intervened at one point to push for more information after Rajbinder Sangha gave that very response.
She had been asked to explain some of the detail she was across when it came to Horizon issues - and, again, said this would've been handled by people more senior than her.
After some audible groans from people watching on, Williams asked Sangha to be more specific, to which she named her manager at the time. But when asked what that manager might've known about Horizon defects, Sangha conceded that she didn't know.
A lesson to be learned from all this, she says later, is that more discussions should've been had among Fujitsu employees and the content of them distributed to people at all levels.
If evidence shows cover-up, people need to be held accountable, says Read
Read is asked whether the individuals at the Post Office who were aware but
did not seek to address this issue are unfit to hold directorships or sit on
any board of any company, public or private.
Read
says that if evidence is produced that there was a cover up then “clearly action
needs to be taken” and people would need to be held to account.
Fujitsu brand and value 'under question' in the UK, executive tells committee
The inquiry is looking at whether Fujitsu should pay back any money, Patterson tells the committee.
"We will take the advice from Sir Wyn to contribute to the redress or compensation scheme," he adds.
Asked whether Fujitsu should withdraw itself from bidding for government contracts while the inquiry is ongoing, Patterson says: "We will look at every opportunity and determine whether we bid for it in the open market or not.
"It is very clear that our brand and our value in the UK into government is under question," he responds.
Striking how similar some victims' stories are
Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry
I'm still at the Post Office scandal inquiry - which is entirely separate to the Commons select committee hearing, which you've been reading about on this page.
We've returned from a short break - and it's safe to say the conversations you have, and hear, in those moments bring home why we are all here.
One person, who won't speak on the record for a number of reasons, explained to me how their family had been affected by the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
What shocks me most is how similar their story is to so many of the other victims, because it reinforces the scale of all this.
Inquiry lawyer Julian Blake is now taking Rajbinder Sangha, who still works for Fujitsu, through more issues with the Horizon system.
Again, these faults are shown - via documents we're seeing - to have been known to Fujitsu employees in 2010 and beyond (when Sangha worked at Fujitsu’s fraud and litigation support office).
Read committed to 'getting Post Office off Horizon system'
Read
is now asked why the Post Office is still using Horizon and whether he is failing
to “innovate and look at new suppliers”.
He
says he is committed to getting off Horizon and that he has often spoken to
Patterson about it and that they want to make sure there is a “new and upgraded
system”.
He
says the Horizon system is 25 years old and that it “does what it's meant to do", but that
they are very clear that they need a more modern system for a modern post
office.
“We
will be getting off horizon - that is our intent,” Read says.
Data protection was very poor, says Post Office boss
Comments from the Horizon compensation advisory board, which has said that the Post Office is responsible for the delay in overturning of convictions because of information being lost or destroyed, are being put to Read now.
"The challenge within our organisation of data and the protection of data over the last 20 years have been pretty poor," says Read.
The Post Office boss says he would look at ways to work with officials to find ways to make bureaucratic processes more efficient.
Fujitsu not yet made provisions for compensation, Patterson says
Patterson
says Fujitsu has not made provisions for the compensation “yet”.
He says that they
can’t put a number on that yet, but that once they get to that position they
will “absolutely” have to make provisions for it.
'Lack of curiosity' over number of prosecutions, committee hears
Read is asked now why were there so many prosecutions after Horizon.
He says his assessment of the period pre-Horizon is that "there were just as many prosecutions".
He agrees there was "a lack of curiosity" about the number of prosecutions, which is something, he says, remains a mystery to be uncovered by the inquiry.
A committee member suggests the Post Office is unfit to carry on private prosecutions - to which Read responds that, on his watch, the organisation will not be carrying out private prosecutions in future.
Post Office was in 'shock and paralysis' in 2019, Read says
Asked how he would describe the ethics of the Post Office before he joined in 2019, Read says the organisation was "in shock and paralysis" as a consequence of the Horizon scandal.
"It's important senior executives from my team go out meet with the victims and they see what's occurred [...] people need to see and feel what has happened", he adds.
But he also adds that the Horizon scandal "wasn't dominating everything" within the Post Office when he joined, he says.
Analysis
What the select committee's heard so far
Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent
Four things have emerged from today's questioning by MPs about this scandal.
First, we are yet to see the full scale of it all. From one of the lawyers fighting for those affected, we’ve heard that here are many more people impacted by the Post Office’s actions who are still coming forward or are yet to - perhaps hundreds.
Second, that means the amount of compensation that’ll be needed is going to be enormous. Only three of those falsely convicted have received final settlements. In many other cases, where some redress has been paid, it is likely the compensation will have to be increased because people settled without the benefit of lawyers and were likely underpaid. The final bill is going to run to millions and millions. Will the government make Fujitsu pick up a chunk of that?
Third, the government has said it wants to see this sorted out this year and there is going to be huge and ongoing pressure now to deliver on that. Alan Bates, who led the campaign against the Post Office, articulated the frustrations at the grindingly slow bureaucracy to get redress. Politicians have promised to finally make it happen. They’ll be scrutinised for that.
And finally, MPs are already expressing frustration with what they are hearing from Fujitsu and the Post Office. In response to quite a few questions the answers from the bosses of the two organisations, who’ve both been in place for several years, have amounted to: "I don’t know".
When was Fujitsu aware of issues with the computer system? Why was action not taken? When did the Post Office know Fujitsu personnel could have remote access to computer terminals?
The politicians themselves have often been flatfooted about this scandal and are now keen to show they are taking it seriously. And that’s likely to lead to pressure on the Post Office and Fujitsu that’s not going to let up.
Read 'can't give exact date' when Post Office knew remote access was possible
Talking about the timeline of the scandal, Read is asked when
Post Office staff would have known that remote access by Fujitsu was possible.
He says he can’t give an exact date, which doesn’t fly well with the chair who says it is “fundamental” to know that information.
Read says he will be providing the inquiry with all the
information they need but that he doesn’t have the exact date.
Fujitsu executive has 'not met victims physically', committee told
Patterson is asked whether he has met any victims of the Horizon scandal.
He says he has not met any sub-postmasters physically, but that he hasn't decided to not meet the victims.
"I have personally watched the drama on TV and read the evidence that was given in the impact statements by sub-postmasters", he says.
Post Office knew about bugs and errors early on, Fujitsu boss says
Asked when exactly Fujitsu management became aware that the
system was faulty, Patterson says he can’t say the year.
Pressed on whether it
was from “day one” or later on, Patterson says there were known “bugs and
errors” in the system at a very early stage.
He says there were
issues when it was rolled out but that in any large IT projects “there will
always be bugs and errors” particularly, he says, with systems of this scale.
The important thing, Patterson says, is what they did with that information, which he guarantees was shared with the Post Office.
'I'm absolutely appalled at the answers we've received' - committee member
Douglas Chapman MP, briefly interrupts the committee to say he has yet to hear an answer to the questions he's asked Patterson and Read.
"If we're bringing people in front of the committee, we would expect them at least to have a knowledge of the history of what's happened," he says.
"I am absolutely appalled at the answers we have received," he adds.
Patterson is now asked about why he didn’t act when he knew
there were bugs in the system.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” he answers.
He says following his appointment in 2019 he has been
looking back at the evidence, adding: “I just don’t know”.
The inquiry is
looking at that and at who knew what when and what action they took or didn’t
take, he tells the committee.
Patterson's apology marks a shift from Fujitsu
Emma Simpson
Business correspondent at the committee hearing
Fujitsu has remained largely silent as a company these last few years.
Now a public apology for its role.
Paul Patterson says he's personally appalled by evidence he's seen and agrees Fujitsu has moral obligation to contribute to compensation.
Fujitsu had remote access to Horizon systems, executive confirms
Now Patterson is asked whether
Fujitsu had remote access to Horizon systems.
He says that the inquiry is looking
at this and confirms that there was remote access.
He says that support from Fujitsu has been documented and that the Post
Office was aware of this remote access.
Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read is also pressed on this. He says the company is cooperating “wholeheartedly” with the inquiry.
“Clearly there will be
individuals from the Post Office who will be providing witness statements and
who will be coming forward to give insight into that,” Read says.
Live Reporting
Edited by Marita Moloney and Aoife Walsh
All times stated are UK
Get involved
New legislation expected 'within weeks', minister says
Kevin Hollinrake, the minister responsible for the Post Office, is now appearing in front of the committee.
He has just been asked what his goals for the new legislation are, and when he thinks the bill will be introduced.
Hollinrake says he has tried to get compensation out as quickly and fairly as possible, and wants to "hold people to account".
"We can't get money to people unless we overturn convictions", he says.
Pushed to give a time frame, he says the legislation should be expected "within weeks".
Post Office 'would not block NDAs from being broken', Read says
Read is asked now if the Post Office still uses non disclosure agreements (NDAs).
"Not to my knowledge," he responds.
Read is asked whether the Post Office would block NDAs made in the past being broken.
Read says no, and that people should come forward and say exactly what they need to say.
Frustration over Read's response to committee questions
Back at the select committee, Read is now asked if before 2015 there were any mentions of possible problems with Horizon in documents he had seen. He acquiesces and adds that those documents were submitted to the inquiry.
Asked whether Parliament was misled, he says he cannot comment, but then adds that individuals were prosecuted on the basis of information that may be erroneous.
He is asked whether he would have told this committee that all prosecutions were sound in 2015, having seen what he has now seen. He says more context is required and that the inquiry will get to bottom of details.
Asked if the culture at the Post Office at time was to cover up failings, Read says he cannot comment on this.
The MP presses him, saying that having read the minutes and documents showing that there was knowledge that the system was unsound, “you can’t say it was wrong to say in 2015 that all prosecutions were sound?”
Read reiterates there is an issue that needs to be addressed, and that the inquiry will do this.
The MP appears frustrated with Read's responses and asks whether he is using the inquiry to “not be curious”.
“My job is to make sure that redress is speedily delivered to our victims, and most importantly that I run the Post Office of today,” Read says.
Groans when Fujitsu employee tells inquiry she 'can't remember'
Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry
Here at the inquiry (which is separate to the select committee), a phrase that's been used more than once today is "I can't remember".
Chair Sir Wyn Williams, appearing today via a remote video link, intervened at one point to push for more information after Rajbinder Sangha gave that very response.
She had been asked to explain some of the detail she was across when it came to Horizon issues - and, again, said this would've been handled by people more senior than her.
After some audible groans from people watching on, Williams asked Sangha to be more specific, to which she named her manager at the time. But when asked what that manager might've known about Horizon defects, Sangha conceded that she didn't know.
A lesson to be learned from all this, she says later, is that more discussions should've been had among Fujitsu employees and the content of them distributed to people at all levels.
If evidence shows cover-up, people need to be held accountable, says Read
Read is asked whether the individuals at the Post Office who were aware but did not seek to address this issue are unfit to hold directorships or sit on any board of any company, public or private.
Read says that if evidence is produced that there was a cover up then “clearly action needs to be taken” and people would need to be held to account.
Fujitsu brand and value 'under question' in the UK, executive tells committee
The inquiry is looking at whether Fujitsu should pay back any money, Patterson tells the committee.
"We will take the advice from Sir Wyn to contribute to the redress or compensation scheme," he adds.
Asked whether Fujitsu should withdraw itself from bidding for government contracts while the inquiry is ongoing, Patterson says: "We will look at every opportunity and determine whether we bid for it in the open market or not.
"It is very clear that our brand and our value in the UK into government is under question," he responds.
Striking how similar some victims' stories are
Sam Hancock
Live reporter at the Post Office inquiry
I'm still at the Post Office scandal inquiry - which is entirely separate to the Commons select committee hearing, which you've been reading about on this page.
We've returned from a short break - and it's safe to say the conversations you have, and hear, in those moments bring home why we are all here.
One person, who won't speak on the record for a number of reasons, explained to me how their family had been affected by the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
What shocks me most is how similar their story is to so many of the other victims, because it reinforces the scale of all this.
Inquiry lawyer Julian Blake is now taking Rajbinder Sangha, who still works for Fujitsu, through more issues with the Horizon system.
Again, these faults are shown - via documents we're seeing - to have been known to Fujitsu employees in 2010 and beyond (when Sangha worked at Fujitsu’s fraud and litigation support office).
Read committed to 'getting Post Office off Horizon system'
Read is now asked why the Post Office is still using Horizon and whether he is failing to “innovate and look at new suppliers”.
He says he is committed to getting off Horizon and that he has often spoken to Patterson about it and that they want to make sure there is a “new and upgraded system”.
He says the Horizon system is 25 years old and that it “does what it's meant to do", but that they are very clear that they need a more modern system for a modern post office.
“We will be getting off horizon - that is our intent,” Read says.
Data protection was very poor, says Post Office boss
Comments from the Horizon compensation advisory board, which has said that the Post Office is responsible for the delay in overturning of convictions because of information being lost or destroyed, are being put to Read now.
"The challenge within our organisation of data and the protection of data over the last 20 years have been pretty poor," says Read.
The Post Office boss says he would look at ways to work with officials to find ways to make bureaucratic processes more efficient.
Fujitsu not yet made provisions for compensation, Patterson says
Patterson says Fujitsu has not made provisions for the compensation “yet”.
He says that they can’t put a number on that yet, but that once they get to that position they will “absolutely” have to make provisions for it.
'Lack of curiosity' over number of prosecutions, committee hears
Read is asked now why were there so many prosecutions after Horizon.
He says his assessment of the period pre-Horizon is that "there were just as many prosecutions".
He agrees there was "a lack of curiosity" about the number of prosecutions, which is something, he says, remains a mystery to be uncovered by the inquiry.
A committee member suggests the Post Office is unfit to carry on private prosecutions - to which Read responds that, on his watch, the organisation will not be carrying out private prosecutions in future.
Post Office was in 'shock and paralysis' in 2019, Read says
Asked how he would describe the ethics of the Post Office before he joined in 2019, Read says the organisation was "in shock and paralysis" as a consequence of the Horizon scandal.
"It's important senior executives from my team go out meet with the victims and they see what's occurred [...] people need to see and feel what has happened", he adds.
But he also adds that the Horizon scandal "wasn't dominating everything" within the Post Office when he joined, he says.
What the select committee's heard so far
Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent
Four things have emerged from today's questioning by MPs about this scandal.
First, we are yet to see the full scale of it all. From one of the lawyers fighting for those affected, we’ve heard that here are many more people impacted by the Post Office’s actions who are still coming forward or are yet to - perhaps hundreds.
Second, that means the amount of compensation that’ll be needed is going to be enormous. Only three of those falsely convicted have received final settlements. In many other cases, where some redress has been paid, it is likely the compensation will have to be increased because people settled without the benefit of lawyers and were likely underpaid. The final bill is going to run to millions and millions. Will the government make Fujitsu pick up a chunk of that?
Third, the government has said it wants to see this sorted out this year and there is going to be huge and ongoing pressure now to deliver on that. Alan Bates, who led the campaign against the Post Office, articulated the frustrations at the grindingly slow bureaucracy to get redress. Politicians have promised to finally make it happen. They’ll be scrutinised for that.
And finally, MPs are already expressing frustration with what they are hearing from Fujitsu and the Post Office. In response to quite a few questions the answers from the bosses of the two organisations, who’ve both been in place for several years, have amounted to: "I don’t know".
When was Fujitsu aware of issues with the computer system? Why was action not taken? When did the Post Office know Fujitsu personnel could have remote access to computer terminals?
The politicians themselves have often been flatfooted about this scandal and are now keen to show they are taking it seriously. And that’s likely to lead to pressure on the Post Office and Fujitsu that’s not going to let up.
Read 'can't give exact date' when Post Office knew remote access was possible
Talking about the timeline of the scandal, Read is asked when Post Office staff would have known that remote access by Fujitsu was possible.
He says he can’t give an exact date, which doesn’t fly well with the chair who says it is “fundamental” to know that information.
Read says he will be providing the inquiry with all the information they need but that he doesn’t have the exact date.
Fujitsu executive has 'not met victims physically', committee told
Patterson is asked whether he has met any victims of the Horizon scandal.
He says he has not met any sub-postmasters physically, but that he hasn't decided to not meet the victims.
"I have personally watched the drama on TV and read the evidence that was given in the impact statements by sub-postmasters", he says.
Post Office knew about bugs and errors early on, Fujitsu boss says
Asked when exactly Fujitsu management became aware that the system was faulty, Patterson says he can’t say the year.
Pressed on whether it was from “day one” or later on, Patterson says there were known “bugs and errors” in the system at a very early stage.
He says there were issues when it was rolled out but that in any large IT projects “there will always be bugs and errors” particularly, he says, with systems of this scale.
The important thing, Patterson says, is what they did with that information, which he guarantees was shared with the Post Office.
'I'm absolutely appalled at the answers we've received' - committee member
Douglas Chapman MP, briefly interrupts the committee to say he has yet to hear an answer to the questions he's asked Patterson and Read.
"If we're bringing people in front of the committee, we would expect them at least to have a knowledge of the history of what's happened," he says.
"I am absolutely appalled at the answers we have received," he adds.
'I really don't know' why Fujitsu didn't act, Patterson tells committee
Patterson is now asked about why he didn’t act when he knew there were bugs in the system.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know,” he answers.
He says following his appointment in 2019 he has been looking back at the evidence, adding: “I just don’t know”.
The inquiry is looking at that and at who knew what when and what action they took or didn’t take, he tells the committee.
Patterson's apology marks a shift from Fujitsu
Emma Simpson
Business correspondent at the committee hearing
Fujitsu has remained largely silent as a company these last few years.
Now a public apology for its role.
Paul Patterson says he's personally appalled by evidence he's seen and agrees Fujitsu has moral obligation to contribute to compensation.
Fujitsu had remote access to Horizon systems, executive confirms
Now Patterson is asked whether Fujitsu had remote access to Horizon systems.
He says that the inquiry is looking at this and confirms that there was remote access.
He says that support from Fujitsu has been documented and that the Post Office was aware of this remote access.
Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read is also pressed on this. He says the company is cooperating “wholeheartedly” with the inquiry.
“Clearly there will be individuals from the Post Office who will be providing witness statements and who will be coming forward to give insight into that,” Read says.