Post Office and Horizon - Compensation: follow-up

The Government must immediately remove the Post Office from any involvement in delivering redress for sub-postmasters and the Government should set out to the Committee how it proposes to deliver swift and effective redress for sub-postmasters, and in what legally binding timeframes. We repeat the Committee’s recommendation that the Government set up a properly resourced independent intermediary to assist sub-postmasters seeking to overturn convictions and seek compensation across all redress schemes. This intermediary should provide claimants with access to forensic accountants and legal experts who can offer advice to help ensure that claims are robust as possible, that offers take account of all the losses suffered and that claimants do not suffer significant detriment because records have not been kept by the Post Office or other relevant organisations.

To correct the abject failure to deliver timely redress for sub-postmasters, the Government must include in its forthcoming legislation legal timeframes to deliver redress to sub-postmasters. Those targets should include binding timeframes for each stage of a compensation claim, with financial penalties awarded to the claimant for failure to meet those deadlines. To accelerate the submission of claims, the Government must review and radically simplify the evidential requirements of the claims process, especially in relation to medical impact, consequential loss and repetitional damage.

To ensure that offers of redress are fast and fair, the Government must: (Paragraph 16) a) Require full disclosures by the Post Office of the information needed to submit full and fair claims within legally binding timeframes; b) publish a standardised tariff of damages to help sub-postmasters claim the full amount to which they are entitled; c) remove the cap on legal expenses for sub-postmasters to contest their claims; d) allow those who have already settled under the Horizon Shortfall Scheme to revisit their claims to ensure that they have received fair redress; and e) introduce a legally binding independent appeals mechanism.