Business and Trade Committee calls for government to be fined as Post Office victims face ‘second trial’ in struggle for redress | Money News

A committee of MPs has called for the government to be fined if it fails to provide redress quickly enough to victims of the Horizon software scandal, as its report said the Post Office has spent at least £136m on legal fees.

New legally enforceable time limits for each stage of claim processing should be introduced, a report from the Business and Trade Committee (BTC) has said.

If a claim by a victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal does not move in line with the time limits they should receive the financial penalties paid by the government.

More than 700 sub-postmasters across the UK were wrongfully prosecuted by the Post Office for theft and false accounting using the Horizon software made by Fujitsu which incorrectly generated shortfalls in branches.

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Many more incurred large debts, lost homes, experienced relationship breakdown, became unwell in an effort to repay the imagined shortfalls and some took their own lives.

Four schemes have been launched as the state and the Post Office attempt to redress the wrongs.

Making redress less punishing

But the process of seeking compensation is “akin to a second trial for victims”, the committee chair Liam Byrne said.

It is “imperative” applicants receive upfront legal advice paid for by scheme operators rather than applicants, the committee’s report said, as evidence given by claimants’ solicitors said when they get legal advice, their financial redress offers double.

Applications place an “excessive burden” on claimants to “grapple complex legal concepts” on the amount of redress they’re owed and requests for information about the losses Horizon caused, despite no longer having access to Horizon data.

There have been delays in processing requests for disclosures from the Post Office, the report found.

It comes as the Post Office spent £136m on legal costs, meaning government legal representatives are “walking away with millions”, according to the committee.

Vast majority of redress not paid

Despite this, the BTC said the “vast majority” of redress has not been paid.

As many as 14% of those who applied to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme (HSS) to compensate for losses incurred via the faulty computer programme have still not settled their claims despite applying before the original 2020 deadline.

It cost £67m to administer the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, a bill equal to 27% of redress paid, amounting to £26,600 per claim.

Repeating calls

The topic of who operates the schemes has been revisited by the committee as it reiterated its call for the Post Office to have no involvement and for independent adjudicators to be appointed instead.

The government removed the Post Office from schemes involving convictions but the organisation still administers the HSS.

It also repeated its rebuffed demand for the appointment of an independent adjudicator for each scheme. The committee wants these adjudicators to manage cases and ensure claims move through the process swiftly.

In response, a spokesperson for the Labour-run Department for Business and Trade said: “Since entering government, we have worked tirelessly to speed up the process of providing the victims of the Horizon scandal with full and fair redress including by launching the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme earlier this year.

“We are settling claims at a faster rate than ever before with the amount of redress paid doubling since July, with almost £500m being paid to over 3,300 claimants as of the end of November.”