Sub-postmasters won't get payouts by March, says minister

EPA

Sub-postmasters impacted by the Horizon IT scandal will not all receive compensation payments by March next year, the government's Post Office minister has said.

Gareth Thomas said it would be "difficult" to achieve such a deadline, after calls from former sub-postmaster and campaigner Sir Alan Bates.

Sir Alan urged the government to set a March 2025 deadline to pay financial redress for all the sub-postmasters involved in the initial legal action against the Post Office which uncovered the scandal.

Thomas said he agreed with Sir Alan that faster progress on compensation payments to all victims was needed.

"I wish I could commit to Sir Alan’s time frame," he told BBC Breakfast, adding: "I think we will have made substantial progress by next summer."

Sir Alan has been heavily critical of the length of time it is taking for victims of what has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history to receive financial redress.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty Horizon IT accounting system made it look like money was missing from branch accounts.

Some sub-postmasters ended up going to prison, while many more were financially ruined and lost their livelihoods. Some died while waiting for justice.

Sir Alan leads the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance, campaigning for financial redress for the 555 victims who took part in the landmark group legal action against the Post Office that culminated in 2019.

Their compensation was, however, swallowed up by the huge legal costs involved in bringing their case.

The government went on to set up a specific compensation fund involved in the Group Litigation Order (GLO) to give these sub-postmasters the redress like others affected, but progress has been slow.

Last month, Sir Alan said the Department for Business appeared to be trying to get away with paying out as little as possible to victims while maximising the income for the legal firms involved.

He questions whether the government is dragging the "issue out to exhaust victims until their deaths" and if the scheme has become a "gravy train" for its lawyers.

A total of £265m has been spent on lawyers relating to the Post Office scandal from 2014 to 2024.

Sir Alan said said the March deadline was needed for the GLO redress as it was three years since that particular compensation scheme was announced.

Post Office minister Thomas, who was appointed following Labour's general election victory, told the BBC: "I agree with him [Sir Alan] we need to make faster progress.

"We are trying to unblock the blockages and speed up the process of compensation," he added.

"There are four compensation schemes in place, two of which the government runs, and two of which the post office runs. I have looked at whether we should just start afresh but that would lead to further delays in getting money out of the door."

Deadlines for payments has previously been ruled out for fear that some sub-postmasters might be timed out of claiming compensation.

There isn't a single compensation scheme for sub-postmasters to apply to and eligibility is depended on the circumstances of an individual's case. The four main schemes are aimed at groups of victims who had different experiences of the scandal.

According to the latest government figures, external, 201 of the eligible 492 sub-postmasters in the GLO scheme have received their payments in full.

Of the hundreds of members of the GLO group, 63 had criminal convictions and therefore are not eligible for this scheme but they are eligible for other compensation - depending on how their convictions are being overturned.

Sir Alan has said he would be prepared to go back to court if "excuses" were made around further delays to financial redress, adding he would be meeting with new law firms to discuss the matter.

The Post Office minister said: "My message...to him is keep holding our feet to the fire."