MPs call for Post Office to be fined for delaying payments

The government should impose time limits on the Post Office for making compensation payments – with financial penalties for missing targets.

That was one of the recommendations made by the House of Commons business select committee in response to continued delays to providing redress to sub-postmasters involved in the Horizon IT scandal.

The committee reported that just 20% of the budget set aside for compensation has actually been paid out.

In a report published yesterday, MPs also said victims need unfettered access to lawyers and the Post Office to be put under pressure to improve speed of payments.

They recommended that the government must include in forthcoming legislation legal timeframes to deliver redress, as recommended to the committee last month by former sub-postmaster Alan Bates.

Those targets should include binding time limits for each stage of a compensation claim, with financial penalties awarded to claimants for failure to meet those deadlines. The committee also suggested the government should ‘radically simplify’ the evidence requirements of the claims process, especially in relation to medical impact, consequential loss and repetitional damage. 

Committee chair Liam Byrne said: ‘To guarantee this scandal drags on no longer, we have to enshrine into law an idea proposed by Mr Bates, of legally binding timetables for payouts. Any new bill that the government presents to parliament, must now pass the ‘Mr Bates test’ of legally binding timeframes for settling justice.’

The committee said it was ‘alarming’ to hear that the government’s support team for dealing with compensation payments at Addleshaw Goddard was staffed by just 15 people, of whom eight are qualified lawyers. Solicitors representing claimants said they expected it may take up to two years for their clients to secure full and final redress.

MPs were ‘extremely concerned’ to hear that a significant number of initial offers made by the Post Office for redress were ‘insultingly low’.

They called for ministers to remove the cap on legal expenses for sub-postmasters and publish a standardised tariff of damages to help victims to claim the full amount to which they are entitled.

The report added: ‘The initial legal support made available to sub-postmasters was in no way commensurate to the legal firepower available to the Post Office. As such, contests to settle final claims have been unbalanced by a substantial inequality of arms.’

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