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MPs have criticised the speed at which compensation is being paid to the victims of the Post Office scandal and have called for the government to face financial penalties if the process is not hastened. The Business and Trade Select Committee wants binding timeframes to be implemented and said that any money arising from missed deadlines should be paid to claimants if they were not met. The committee has also asked for more transparency over how much the Post Office is paying for lawyers and has called for it to be removed from its role in compensations.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of sub-postmasters were convicted based on information from a faulty accounting system called Horizon which looked as though money was missing. Some sub-postmasters were financially ruined, wrongfully imprisoned and some have since died. The scandal caused an ITV drama to catapult the issue into the public’s attention and a public inquiry is currently looking into the matter.
Committee Chairman Liam Byrne MP said, “the fault lies with the Post Office, but ultimately government is the shareholder in the Post Office and acts on our behalf”. The government claims it is “working tirelessly” to settle claims “at a faster rate than ever before”. Some of the committee’s recommendations for improvement were previously rejected by the former Tory government.
The committee’s recommendations include providing upfront legal advice for victims and hard deadlines for administrators to approve claims, with financial penalties if they take too long. Only around £499m of the budgeted £1.8bn has been paid out so far, to more than 3,000 claimants. The committee said that meant 72% of the budget had still not been paid.
A Post Office spokesperson said the firm was “focused on paying redress as swiftly as possible”, adding that its spending on external law firms was kept “under constant review”. “Our chair said at the Public Inquiry in October that redress schemes administered by us should be transferred to the government, and we will support the Department for Business and Trade on any decisions they may take regarding this matter,” the spokesperson added
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