Andrew Bridgen welcomes news that the ‘555’ group of victims of the Post Office Horizon software scandal, who defeated the Post Office in the High Court case, will get the compensation they deserve and asks the Government to ensure the current public inquiry gets to the truth of why the Post Office decided to defend the action brought by the 555 when they had evidence the Horizon system was faulty.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I welcome the announcement that the 555 sub-postmasters, including my constituents, will now at long last get the compensation they deserve. Does the Minister agree, however, that it is important that the public inquiry currently running gets to the truth of why the Post Office decided to defend the action brought by the 555 for more than four years, at huge cost to the public purse, when back in 2015, following the investigation by Second Sight and Ron Warmington and the evidence from the Fujitsu whistleblower, I knew, the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) knew and more importantly the Post Office knew that the Horizon system was faulty and that the convictions of the sub-postmasters were completely unsafe?
Paul Scully (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy)
I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done to expose this matter. That is why the independent statutory inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams has been listening to testimony from those so badly affected. The next stage of his inquiry is exactly to get to the bottom of the questions my hon. Friend asks: who knew what and when in the Post Office, Fujitsu and Departments across Government. We will get to the bottom of that.