19 July 2024 – Joanne Swinson and Dame Greene
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(9.45 am)
Mr Blake: Good morning, sir. Can you see and hear me?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can, thank you.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. This morning we’re going to hear from Ms Swinson.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Joanne Swinson
JOANNE KATE SWINSON (affirmed).
Questioned by Mr Blake
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. Can you state your full name, please?
Joanne Swinson: My name is Joanne Kate Swinson.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. Ms Swinson, you should have in front of you a witness statement?
Joanne Swinson: I do.
Mr Blake: Is that dated 19 June 2024?
Joanne Swinson: It is.
Mr Blake: Could I ask you, please, to turn to the final page.
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I’ve done that.
Mr Blake: Can you confirm that is your signature?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, that is my signature.
Mr Blake: Can you confirm that that statement is true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, the statement is true.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. That witness statement has a Unique Reference Number of WITN10190100 and that will be uploaded to the Inquiry’s website?
You are formally a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament?
Joanne Swinson: That’s right.
Mr Blake: You were an MP between 2005 and 2015 and then again between 2017 and 2019; is that correct?
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: You have been both the Deputy Leader and then subsequently Leader of the Liberal Democrat party?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I have.
Mr Blake: Relevant for today’s purpose, you were Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs –
Joanne Swinson: (The witness nodded)
Mr Blake: – between 6 September 2012 and 8 May 2015; is that correct?
Joanne Swinson: That is correct.
Mr Blake: That was during the Coalition years?
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: At the same time, I think you were also Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities?
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: Some of that time, I think 18 December 2013 to 30 June 2014, you were also on maternity leave?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I was.
Mr Blake: Your post in both respects was covered by Jenny Willott MP or just in respect of one of those posts?
Joanne Swinson: In both of the ministerial posts, obviously not my constituency work.
Mr Blake: Those are two very long ministerial titles. Did you divide your time equally between the two?
Joanne Swinson: The role at BIS – Business, Innovation and Skills – was a role that took more of my time than the Women and Equalities role. There were more different elements to the brief at BIS, as indeed from the title, Employment Relations, Consumer Affairs and Postal Affairs, which was very wide-ranging, even within those topics, including competition policy and insolvency and European liaison on different issues. So that had more of my time but, obviously, the Women and Equalities role also took time, so, across the four days that I was able to spend on my ministerial commitments during the week, with the other three days, obviously being spent in my constituency working, I would say probably about 80 per cent of my time was spent on the BIS portfolio.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much. I’m going to get into trouble with the stenographer, I imagine, if you don’t speak slightly slower, if you may?
Joanne Swinson: I will do my best.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Employment relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs. How do you divide that 80 per cent of your time up between the three?
Joanne Swinson: I think in my total ministerial time, probably about 15 per cent might have been spent on postal affairs. I think it would also be worth noting that it was not static, so it would depend on what the issues were at the time. So, for example, during my time as a Minister, I took five different Bills through the House of Commons and Bills just eat your time. Hours, and hours, and hours of debates in committee report stage in Parliament but all of the preparation in terms of the policy development, the engagement with different groups about what goes into those Bills.
So at the points where a Bill was being taken through, then that would be eating up a huge amount of my time and none of those Bills that I did were in the postal services area.
And so that – yeah, it varied but, probably on average, about 15 per cent on Post Office and I note that when I came back from maternity leave, for example, and I had the deep dives in the different areas of my brief, I had those on six different areas of which one was postal affairs and, of course, within postal affairs, there was a broad range of different issues to be considering.
Mr Blake: Thank you. In terms of the actual post, Minister for Postal Affairs, did you see your role as being accountable to Parliament for the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, definitely Parliamentary accountability was a necessary part of the role, not least because Parliament is one of the places where, you know – with the exception of Select Committees – Post Office officials can’t actually themselves answer any questions. So if a question was to be asked in the House of Commons, either written or orally, then it had to be a Minister who would be answering that. So that Parliamentary accountability was definitely part of the role.
Mr Blake: You’re accountable to Parliament for the Post Office. Who is the Post Office accountable to, in your view?
Joanne Swinson: Ultimately, the Post Office is accountable to its shareholder, which the Government, and then, of course, in terms of, you know, wider general accountability, as a public institution, through, you know, members of the media and others, there are ways in which that accountability operates in other spheres too.
Mr Blake: I’d like to take you to a passage from your witness statement, if we could bring up on screen WITN10190100. It’s paragraph 112, that is on page 47. At paragraph 112 you say as follows:
“… I do find the accountability placed on Ministers for [the Post Office] was not matched with the levers available to Ministers to affect or influence what [the Post Office] was doing. It was always made clear to me that it was not for me as Minister to interfere with operational matters, and it was only feasible to engage with the most serious and strategically important objective and aims of the Post Office.”
I’d like to focus on that division. Can you assist us with how you saw operational matters; what were operational matters for you?
Joanne Swinson: I think the first thing would say is I was never presented with, nor necessarily spent a huge amount of time critiquing, what was operational and what was strategic. It wasn’t like there was some list of criteria somewhere. It was a division which was interpreted probably with a bit more fluidity than that but, clearly, in terms of strategic matters, that would include issues such as the size and the future sustainability and health of the Post Office Network, the context for this being that we had recently had very significant Post Office closures, which every MP in Parliament had been affected by and exercised by. I’d certainly campaigned against Post Office closures in my constituency in East Dunbartonshire, and it struck me this was one of the issues that didn’t matter if you were Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, SNP, whatever, you cared about your local post offices.
So that was a very contentious political issue and I think we heard from Pat McFadden earlier this week how obviously that was a big issue in the years immediately preceding the Coalition Government. So, therefore, securing the future network, stabilising that network was a very strategically important goal.
That was obviously linked to financial sustainability and one of those areas was the Government services, so how to make sure the Post Office could have a sustainable future, contracts such as the Post Office Card Account or the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, passport renewals, these would be contracts that Government could give to Post Office and, as a minister, I would be engaged in discussions with other ministers in other departments about trying to make sure Post Office would be a provider, and there was a long-term issue of mutualisation as well.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Another term that we’re going to come to is “arm’s length”, is that something that was ever explained to you as to what that meant in practice between the Government and the Post Office or you and the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: It wasn’t defined in the sense of here’s a criteria, but it was obviously referenced – not necessarily always with that terminology but it was referenced in terms of the briefings I would receive that would say, of course, this is an operational matter. And it did – I mean, to me I recognised that, with the variety of things I was dealing with as a minister, I wasn’t in a position to either have the expertise of how to run a company on a day-to-day basis nor indeed would I have the time to be able to do so. So that operational strategic distinction seemed to make sense to me.
Mr Blake: We’re going to look at correspondence and we’re going to look at particular events but, structurally, what did you see the role of ShEx being in respect of the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: So at this time, ShEx were part of BIS and, although they were slightly separate, I think they were on a different floor in the building, I also viewed them really as part of the Department, and I mean when I initially started, I don’t think I was told that there was a specific difference, that became clear to me in my time as Minister. But I viewed the team of officials in ShEx, who would come and brief me on Post Office, in a similar way that I would view the team who would brief me on competition policy or on employment rights, or on insolvency, that these would be teams of officials within the Department, who were there to support me in my work as Minister and to fulfil the duties of the Government Department.
And the differential with ShEx was not particularly clear, even when, obviously, I was aware it was a different section. I was aware there was a slightly different culture within ShEx, it was a bit more commercial. They probably, you know, held themselves a little bit more as – maybe, dare I say, sometimes slightly superior, in that sense, you know, that they were the ones dealing with the commercial matters and it had obviously recruited a lot of people from corporate finance or consultancy backgrounds.
I probably wasn’t aware at the time quite the extent to which that recruitment was not within the normal Civil Service pools of recruitment.
Mr Blake: We’re going to see a number of ministerial submissions and briefings. In respect of the Post Office, would they all come from ShEx, or would other members of the Department –
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I wouldn’t want to be absolutely categorical but I think so. I think the main post office team was in ShEx and I am trying to think if there was a kind of example of something. I mean, there would be discussions between private offices sometimes, between my private office and Vince’s private office. So, yeah, but, I mean, I would say the vast, vast, vast majority would come from ShEx.
Mr Blake: Thank you. There were some structural or personnel changes over the time that you were in office. I think Susannah Storey was the Post Office Shareholder Non-Executive Director when you first started, and Will Gibson was the head of the Post Office Shareholder Team in ShEx, and then in 2014, Mr Callard held both of those roles. Is that something that you noticed, the structural change or significant change in that respect?
Joanne Swinson: No, and it wasn’t explicitly flagged to me. In fact, I’m not certain I met Susannah Storey. I may have done but I certainly did not meet with her regularly, in the way that I met with Will Gibson, in terms of the briefings that I was receiving in that period, in late 2012 and in 2013.
I, of course, then was away for the beginning six months of 2014, and so when I came back from maternity leave, Richard Callard was there, and so I presume I got introduced to him in the catch-up days that I had towards the end of my maternity leave, when I was getting back up to speed on the different aspects of my portfolio and, you know – but it will have been in the context of “Here’s Richard, Will has gone somewhere else, Richard is now briefing on Post Office”.
I did realise, and I did know that he was on the Board but I think I hadn’t made the connection, until much more recently, in these preparations, that actually, yes, that was a very significant change in how that was structured, and it, as I say, isn’t one that was flagged to me and I think it is one where, as I set out in my witness statement, I think there are real concerns about that role being combined because it means that there is less opportunity for kind of challenge if the other people of the Post Office team are then reporting to him, because he was the most senior person within that specific Post Office team.
Mr Blake: Specifically in terms of the Non-Executive Director, the Post Office Board member, who did you consider they were accountable to?
Joanne Swinson: Ultimately to ministers. There would obviously also be a sort of line management responsibility through the senior officials within ShEx and then ultimately in that way through the Permanent Secretary of BIS. I believe that as part of BIS, you know, Martin Donnelly, as Permanent Secretary, would ultimately have oversight of how ShEx was operating through the Chief Executive or senior official within ShEx. So there would be both a main line of accountability through the civil service and then ultimately, obviously, for everything that goes on in the Department, ministers have ultimate responsibility.
Mr Blake: How about in respect of the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: So, I mean, in terms of shareholder – could you just?
Mr Blake: Yes, in terms of that shareholder, the Non-Executive Director, you’ve explained that they’re accountable to the Department. In respect of their accountability to the Post Office, did you see another line of accountability there?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I obviously they were – that particular individual was a non-executive on that Board and that comes with specific duties as a Director, as set out in law, in terms of oversight of a Board. All directors, whether they’re in this unusual situation of being a civil servant who’s a Director on a Board of a Government-owned body or, indeed, any Executive or Non-Executive Director, would have those roles and responsibilities in terms of that accountability.
So, yeah, I mean, they would have those responsibilities and I imagine there might be occasions where they would perhaps recognise there would be a conflict. I know sometimes that Non-Executive Director would recuse themselves from a Post Office decision, in those circumstances.
Mr Blake: Thank you. I’m going to move on now to early briefings that you received on taking up your post. Could we please start with UKGI00041975, please. You started on 6 September, this is 17 September. It is a briefing for your meeting with the Chair and CEO of the Post Office. It begins:
“Purpose
“This is your first meeting with Alice Perkins and Paula Vennells …”
It sets out there, if we scroll down, your objectives and the purpose. One of your objectives being:
“To understand Alice and Paula’s priorities for the business.”
And what are their objectives? Those are set out as:
“To set out her vision for the business, progress [Post Office] is making against plan, and any key areas of concern.
“To underline the importance of new revenue and Government work in securing a viable future for the network. Alice and Paula are likely to seek your support in this area.”
If we scroll over the page, we can see the various areas that are likely to come up in your discussion with Alice Perkins and Paula Vennells. Do you recall who drafted this at all?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I don’t recall. I would imagine the first page would often have a named civil servant on it, that would be certainly where I would go to look at –
Mr Blake: Yes, there isn’t on this one.
Joanne Swinson: In which case, I don’t know but I would imagine it would have been the ShEx team. I don’t know exactly who it would have been.
Mr Blake: Thank you. If we scroll down, we can see the various areas. There isn’t an area here that refers to Horizon or complaints from subpostmasters or anything along those lines. When you started as Postal Affairs Minister, did you have any initial briefing in respect of the allegations that were being made by subpostmasters – we’ll come to a specific email a bit later on but when you first started?
Joanne Swinson: So this meeting was I think in my second week in the role and I – you know, I was still at that point having briefings to get up to speed on different aspects of – even – to be honest, even being aware of exactly what different things fell into my portfolio. So, you know, timeshares and the, you know, issues of British Summer Time. I mean, there was lots of, you know, bizarre things you wouldn’t necessarily assume were in the portfolio. So I would often find out what was in my portfolio when I would receive correspondence that I was being asked to answer, so clearly that was in my portfolio, and then I would have these briefings but, by the second week in the role, I had not had all of those briefings.
This particular meeting, as an introductory meeting with both Alice and Paula, obviously contained in the annexes that was referenced in that briefing note some background information about Post Office and, therefore, this would have been one of the first opportunities for me to really dig into what the priorities were. I obviously knew that – you know, referencing, you know, my own experience as a constituency MP and the wider political context, that the issues around closures and security of the network were clearly going to be significant but the other issues there, you know, the specifics of Government contracts and mutualisation were brought to me in that note, and in that half-hour meeting I was able to explore that with Alice and Paula to some extent.
Mr Blake: If I can stop you there, that’s what is in the note. What’s not in the note is any briefing on Horizon.
Joanne Swinson: Yes, and –
Mr Blake: Were you in those early days briefed on issues with the Horizon system?
Joanne Swinson: No, not in a sit-down briefing. There was a piece of correspondence which you say we’re going to come to, but no, that was not separately briefed to me.
Mr Blake: Were you aware that the Post Office prosecuted people?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t believe I was at that point. In fact, I think, I probably wasn’t until the following July when I was preparing for the oral statement in the House.
Mr Blake: We’ve discussed the difference between operational matters and serious or strategically important matters. Where would you see the prosecution of subpostmasters fit between those two distinctions?
Joanne Swinson: I think in the normal running of the business, of any business, you would expect that, if there were concerns about fraud, and so on, that they would – that would be undertaken and done so through the usual channels. And my assumption would have been, of course, that that would have been done by handing information to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, making decisions in the way that would happen for any other business.
So the very specific and unusual nature of what the Post Office were doing was not brought to my attention and, indeed, even very – as late as 2015, I was kind of asking questions to be reassured or to be very clear about the exact nature of that and was being told that it was the same as any other private individual or institution that could bring prosecutions. So I don’t believe that that properly reflects how unusual that situation was but I also don’t think I was given that information accurately that explained that situation.
Mr Blake: When you started, whose responsibility would it have been to have given you that information?
Joanne Swinson: I think that information should have been given to me by the relevant Civil Service officials.
Mr Blake: At that time, who would that have been?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I mean, there was a team. I think Will Gibson was the head of that team and there was obviously number of Civil Service officials within that team.
Mr Blake: Could we please turn now to UKGI00001458 (sic). This is a letter from you to another Member of Parliament, if we start on the first page, please. I’m sorry, this is the wrong document. Ah, it should be 49, sorry.
UKGI00001459.
A letter to a Member of Parliament, and it says as follows:
“Thank you for your letter of 20 August to Norman Lamb …”
That’s your predecessor?
Joanne Swinson: Mm.
Mr Blake: “… about the independent review by forensic accountants, of a number of individual cases raised by former subpostmasters, who raised concerns about the Post Office’s Horizon system with their [Member of Parliament]. I am replying as this matter now falls within my portfolio.
“I should first note, that Post Office Limited continues to express full confidence in the robustness and integrity of its Horizon system and related accounting processes. Over the past 10 years, many millions of branch reconciliations have been carried out with transactions and balances accurately recorded on Horizon, by more than 25,000 different subpostmasters in total.”
The next paragraph refers to the Post Office having agreed to an external review, and it says:
“The external review of specific individual cases is being undertaken by a firm of forensic accountants and, to ensure impartiality, James Arbuthnot has reviewed and approved the appointment. I understand the review process is now under way and I have asked to be kept informed of developments.”
So that’s the same day as the briefing that has been prepared that doesn’t mention Horizon. Can you recall the circumstances in which this was signed, agreed by you?
Joanne Swinson: I received a box every evening and that had a variety of maybe 15/20 different submissions for me to read, a diary pack, which would have included the briefing notes for the meeting I had the next day – all of the meetings I had the next day – and then also there would be any Parliamentary Question answers, and a stack of correspondence, and so this letter would have been in one of those correspondence folders. I would have reviewed this letter and signed it amongst maybe another 15 or 20 letters. And, from the documents I’ve been shown by the Inquiry, which were only recently made available, in this perspective, then I asked for a little further information on this because I thought it was something which, you know, would require more information, I imagine.
I don’t have a memory of the exact – what was going through my mind in, you know, week 2 of the job, with a massive box to be doing that evening, but clearly I asked for a short note on the matter to bring me up to speed.
Mr Blake: Can you recall who drafted this letter?
Joanne Swinson: No, and I wouldn’t have known who drafted the letter because, unlike the submissions that would come to me that would have typically a civil servant name at the top of them, the correspondence would just be in a folder that would have the letter that I had to sign, and often that would be clipped in front of the letter that it was responding to.
Mr Blake: So we’ve seen the briefing to you on the day before you meet the Chair and the CEO of the Post Office, which doesn’t mention any issue to do with Horizon. We have this letter of the same date. Is it odd that there is no mention of Horizon or of the underlying issues that are referred to here in that briefing for your meeting?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I didn’t think it was odd at the time. Obviously, it was a half-hour meeting with the Post Office, and it was the first time I was meeting with the Chief Executive and the Chair. You know, there was already lots to cover in terms of that meeting and it clearly wouldn’t be able to cover every single aspect of everything to do with the Post Office.
And, obviously, what I was being told in this letter – often the information that you would get as a Minister, as I say, you’d find out what was in your portfolio by what letters you were being asked to sign at the beginning of your time as a Minister, and you would take the information that had been put down in the letter as, you know, useful information for you to be aware of, and this was explaining, obviously, that there was an external sudden review being undertaken, so it looked like there was something being done about an issue that had been raised.
It was not clear to me, at that point, that this was a wide issue in terms of the number of people affected, in fact it was saying that there was not a large number of people affected and, indeed, that there was action being undertaken. So I don’t think that would have seemed odd to me at the time.
Mr Blake: Was it a topic that was raised by Paula Vennells or Alice Perkins at your meeting the next day, the involvement of Second Sight or –
Joanne Swinson: No.
Mr Blake: – complaints by subpostmasters?
Joanne Swinson: No, it was not.
Mr Blake: Could we please turn to UKGI00001457. I think this is the email you were referring to. It’s an email from Mike Whitehead of 4 October 2012. If we scroll down, we can see that Mike Whitehead was in the Shareholder Executive. Was he somebody who regularly briefed you?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, he was. He was part of that team.
Mr Blake: He has sent this to – if we scroll up, it’s an email account that we will see a number of times today, Swinson MPST; is that your private office?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, that’s my private office, it was an email address that went collectively to all of my private secretaries and then the relevant private secretary, who was covering the particular brief would respond to whichever emails were in their brief.
Mr Blake: So although it has your name, that doesn’t mean it’s an email to you personally?
Joanne Swinson: No, indeed, I would not have seen emails to Swinson MPST. I did not have email access until the very end of my time as a Minister. Everything was done through paper boxes.
Mr Blake: Okay, and who was Claire?
Joanne Swinson: Claire was one of my private secretaries. At that stage, she was the Private Secretary who covered Post Office matters but also, if I recall rightly, some of the consumer and competition matters, I think. But then, later on, she took on the role as the Head of my Private Office after Emily Cloke left.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Mr Whitehead says as follows:
“At a recent meeting with Jo, in the context of having signed off the attached pdf reply to John Pugh MP [and that’s the letter we just looked at], she asked for a short note summarising the position with the Horizon issues referred to in the reply. This is now attached.”
So it seems as though you’ve agreed that letter but have asked for a note to summarise the position.
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: He also says:
“We are also currently dealing with a [Freedom of Information Act] request from an investigative journalist relating to our contacts with [the Post Office] and meetings with/briefings for ministers in the context of the integrity and performance of Horizon.”
We will come on to have a look at that as well.
Joanne Swinson: Sure.
Mr Blake: The briefing can be found at UKGI00018248. Sorry, that’s the Freedom of Information one.
Can we please turn to UKGI00001458. So this is the attachment from the email to Mr Whitehead, I’m just going to read to you a few passages from it. In the second paragraph, about halfway through that second paragraph, it says:
“Since Horizon’s introduction, there has been a small trickle of cases referred to Ministers from or on behalf of former [subpostmasters] who have had their contracts terminated by [the Post Office] for financial ‘discrepancies or shortages’ (falling within the range of theft, false accounting or negligence) who have claimed that there are systemic faults with Horizon which have caused the losses rather than theft or other financial malpractice by themselves or members of their staff/family.”
Scrolling down:
“[The Post Office] has consistently defended Horizon on the basis that the system has been in place for over 10 years; in a typical month Horizon conducts around 80 million customer sessions with 230 million transactions across the system. This is delivered through around 35,000 counter positions in nearly 12,000 post offices which perform weekly and monthly accounting balances. Around £175 million per day is settled to over 700 client companies who use [the Post Office] – a substantial flow of data to and from organisations with regularly audited accounts. Over its extensive period of operation the system has proved robust.
“[The Post Office] cites the cases identified by [ex-subpostmasters] where there is some kind of allegation in respect of Horizon as being a minuscule proportion of the many millions of accounting events that subpostmasters have undertaken since 2000. [The Post Office] believes that if there were any systematic integrity issues within the system they would have been evident over the past 10 years. Both the [National Federation of SubPostmasters] and the CWU that have expressed full confidence in the system.”
Pausing there, do you recall reading this briefing?
Joanne Swinson: No, I don’t recall reading it. I’m certain that I will have done, having asked for it, and that looking at it now, I can certainly say that this would have been a reassuring note. It was saying that there was a lot of subpostmasters, a lot of transactions, lots of big numbers used there, making the case that there was a tiny proportion, a minuscule proportion, it says, and then also it explains that there is a process in place to try to resolve it.
So it was definitely a reassuring message that was being given and that it wasn’t, therefore, going to be something that was going to, it seemed to me, require attention. As I say, it’s not a memory that I specifically have but I’m pretty confident from reading it now that that will have been how I viewed that note.
Mr Blake: Does it reflect conversations that you had at the time?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I imagine so. I think the other thing that’s worth just noting is that this note does not mention prosecutions. So it is in the context of subpostmaster contracts being terminated, which I appreciate will still have been a massive problem and very distressing for those subpostmasters. But it also doesn’t suggest a criminal prosecution level of this.
Mr Blake: It goes on to say:
“Accordingly, [the Post Office] has consistently and publicly expressed full confidence in the robustness, integrity and accuracy of Horizon and long resisted periodic calls from former [subpostmasters] for an independent review/audit of the integrity of the system. A lobbying campaign group ‘Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance’ was established in 2009 and claims a membership of around 100 members but details only 14 specific [complaints].”
Then it goes on to talk about potential legal action that was going to be brought. If we scroll down over the page, as you say, there’s reference over the page to the Post Office agreeing to commission an external review of a small number of individual cases:
“It was agreed that this review would be conducted by a firm of forensic accountants …”
Then at the bottom it says:
“In response to any enquiries to Ministers/the [Department] about individual cases being put forward for review, the replies explain that any cases should be referred to James Arbuthnot MP for consideration through their constituency MP.”
Could we now then move on to the document that I just brought up on screen, which is the submission relating to the Freedom of Information Request. That’s UKGI00018248. So this is from Mr Whitehead. Was Mr Whitehead the author of that previous document we looked at? I know he sent it to you.
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I can’t confirm that. I think it’s a fair assumption to make but I can’t be certain.
Mr Blake: Thank you. If we scroll down, we can see the summary. It says there’s been a Freedom of Information Request from an investigative journalist:
“[It] covers the Department’s engagement with Post Office Limited with regards to concerns and criticisms from a number of former subpostmasters who believe that Post Office’s accounting system (Horizon) is responsible for their contracts being terminated by Post Office Limited. The Department has always supported Post Office Limited’s assertion that the system is robust.”
It then refers to Second Sight having been appointed and it says:
“Post Office Limited is confident that the independent review will support their view that the system is robust and fit for purpose. However, the review has sparked some interest, including this [Freedom of Information Request].”
If we scroll over the page, we can see the request that was made for various copies of documents that pertained to the integrity and performance of the Horizon and Horizon Online system. If we scroll down to paragraph 9, the proposal is to release 28 items of information but to withhold 10 items.
Can you recall any discussions with Mr Whitehead about this request?
Joanne Swinson: No, this was a submission in my box, alongside many others on that evening, on whatever date that it came to me, that I would have read and responded to with a decision.
Mr Blake: Could we please turn to UKGI00013747. We are now in November. Before we were on 23 October, so we are now in the next month. This a letter to another Member of Parliament in respect of their constituent and, again, it starts off by saying:
“I have noted your constituent’s concerns about his experiences as a subpostmaster but should explain that Post Office Limited is fully confident about the robustness and integrity of its Horizon system and related accounting process. Since the Horizon system was introduced in 2000, many millions of branch reconciliations have been carried out with transactions and balances accurately recorded on Horizon by more than 25,000 different subpostmasters in total.
“I am also aware of a small number of incidents where subpostmasters’ contracts have been terminated and in some cases court action has subsequently been taken, following the identification of financial discrepancies and shortages. Neither I, nor the Department are able to comment on, or intervene in individual cases concerning operational and contractual matters.”
Then it sets out enquiries that have been made with the Post Office and, if we scroll down, we can see at the bottom of the second page it says:
“It is worth noting that subpostmasters are contractually responsible for all losses occurred.”
If we go over the page, it again says:
“Whilst, as noted above, subpostmasters are contractually liable for all losses at their branch …”
It ends by saying:
“Should you wish to suggest that Mr Patel’s case can be examined by the forensic accountants, I recommend you contact James Arbuthnot’s office to discuss its possible inclusion in the cases being reviewed by forensic accountants.”
Can you assist us with who would have drafted this response?
Joanne Swinson: I can’t tell you a name but it would have been somebody within that team at ShEx, would be my assumption, because the way that correspondence worked was that it came in to the Department, was processed by the Correspondence Unit, and they then sent it to the relevant policy team to get a draft response, and it was then sent to my private office for printing and putting in my box.
Mr Blake: Would you have discussed it with anybody before agreeing it?
Joanne Swinson: No, routinely my correspondence, as I say, would be a stack every evening in my box, after doing all of the rest of the submissions in my box, and so the normal process would be that I would scan the letter and sign it. And I think it’s important to actually just make that point. Early on in my tenure as Minister, I became very unhappy with the standard of correspondence that I was receiving. Frequently, there would be lots of typos, letters that I would have to send back, there would be sentences that were not finished and it was actually very stressful because, of course, you know, it was taking me a long time to go through my box and then that meant I was having to see letters more than once and so that just expanded the amount of time that had to be spent.
And I actually escalated that. A senior civil servant from the Permanent Secretary’s office agreed to look at my correspondence for a week before I saw it, and she concluded there was a big correspondence quality problem in the Department, and then measures were taken to deal with it. And I remember her saying to me “This is not what you should expect. What you should expect is that you get the letter, you quickly scan it and you can sign it”.
So that information had been given to me to recognise that, although clearly I needed to be aware and sign the correspondence, that was not something which there would be meetings held about each individual letter or indeed that it would be something where I would be expected to spend a very long amount of time on each letter, nor indeed Would that have been feasible.
Mr Blake: Irrespective of the particular individual letter, the correspondence we’ve been looking at all carries the same kind of message –
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: – a small number of cases, trickle, et cetera. What kinds of discussions at this point in time were you having within your Department about the accuracy of that information?
Joanne Swinson: As I say, I’d raised general concerns about the quality of correspondence, this was not specifically about the Post Office team, that was in general sense to say correspondence is important, it needs to be accurate. I recall taking part in workshops for Civil Service officials where I, you know, did a little speech about how important correspondence was because this is people writing to their MP, and then writing to the Minister and this is an important part of our democracy and therefore isn’t something that should be left to the last minute and come to me three months after somebody has actually written a letter.
So that was, in a general sense, that message was going out there but, as I say, in terms of specific cases and specifically in terms of Horizon, at this stage, it was not the subject of particular meetings.
When the correspondence came to me, it was clear that there was a process in place with the forensic accountants, Second Sight, and so it felt to me that that was the appropriate place for these specific issues to be investigated, where the expertise would lie. I clearly wasn’t going to be in a situation of being able to pick through the details of individual cases and come to a sensible conclusion about them nor would that have been appropriate.
Mr Blake: If we scroll up on to the first page – scroll down – sorry, thank you – to the final paragraph on that page, it says:
“… I have made enquiries with [the Post Office] with regard to [the particular case].”
Now, you’re not expected to have made personal enquiries but is it slightly odd that a Member of Parliament is conveying what they’re being told by Post Office Limited, rather than being told to approach Post Office themselves, for example?
Joanne Swinson: So, I mean, obviously the “I” in that sentence is an “I” which obviously relates to the wider Civil Service and so, when I read this to sign it, I take the view that the officials have gone to Post Office. And I mean there’s two ways of dealing with a letter like this. You can have what we call our standard lines, where you have some pre-agreed text on an issue, particularly for those kind of postcard campaigns, where you get dozens, and dozens, and dozens of the same issue, where you can just give a pro forma standard line response that’s been agreed.
But, clearly, that doesn’t feel quite appropriate when you’re dealing with individual cases like this and so I probably would have considered that it was actually helpful to get something that was more of a bespoke response and, to do that, I think the way to do that obviously would have been for them to go to Post Office Limited. There were obviously different ways of doing it. So when I was an MP and I was dealing with constituency correspondence, you know, I would write to agencies, you know, whether it was the Pensions Service or the Department for Work and Pensions and then close my constituent’s correspondence and then get an answer from that agency, and then send that answer with a covering letter.
That would have been another way to do this but, in this case, you know, they obviously were making the enquiries directly but they’ve also clearly flagged that they’ve gone to Post Office to ask about this.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Could we please turn to UKGI00001534, please.
I’m being asked if we’d could slow down in speaking, if possible. Thank you.
Moving now to 12 November, it appears that you visited the Post Office Headquarters and had a meeting with Paula Vennells and Kevin Gilliland, and that included, if we see in the first paragraph, a demonstration of Horizon; is that something that you recall?
Joanne Swinson: I can’t say I have a vivid memory of the demonstration of Horizon, beyond potentially seeing a computer terminal with some screens. It wouldn’t have been – the thing I remember most from that visit, I have to say, is the Post & Go equipment, which was quite new at that point, a little bit like the self-service areas in supermarkets, and so I remember thinking that was quite novel and not being sure how it was going to be received in post offices. But I am sure I did, you know, get to look at a Horizon terminal briefly and will have seen, you know, a screen with different computer options on it, probably not the most exciting part of the visit.
Mr Blake: It’s meeting with the CEO. We’ve seen those letters, we’ve seen a growing picture of complaints from subpostmasters, issues with Horizon. Did that come up in conversation at all?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t think so. At this stage, there had been some correspondence but, as I’ve explained, that correspondence is not something which is taking a huge amount of time to deal with, and so the real significance of this issue did not sink in for me at this stage in my ministerial tenure about what was happening with Horizon. I don’t think the issue of prosecutions had particularly been raised by this point. For me, at this stage, it was definitely in the category of there were some people who had some concerns, Post Office being very robust that those concerns were not well founded and that there was a forensic process to look into them, which was reassuring.
Mr Blake: Thank you. I’m going to move on now to the events leading up to Second Sight’s Interim Report and can I please take you back to your witness statement on paragraph 21. It’s page 8. I’m just going to read from paragraph 21 of your statement. You say as follows:
“My clear memory of first realising the possible importance of the Horizon issues was a meeting with Paula Vennells and Alice Perkins in which I was told about the impending publication of the Second Sight Interim Report. I cannot be certain about the timing as I do not have access to my Ministerial Diary but it would most likely have been in June 2013. I recall the genesis of the meeting being slightly mysterious. It was not in the usual cycle of my regular catch-ups, and unusually, I did not have a briefing note for the meeting in my diary pack for that day. I would not typically meet Paula Vennells and Alice Perkins together. I cannot recall many details of the conversation, but do have a recollection that their tone was quiet and serious as they explained the background to the report. I felt that they were very keen to reassure me that they were taking it seriously but everything was under control, and I would receive a further update from them shortly.”
Can you assist us with the description you’ve used there, “slightly mysterious”; what exactly do you mean by that?
Joanne Swinson: Normally I would have a diary pack prepared for me for the following day and it would have each of my meetings set out with a note/information about what to expect, similar to the one which we saw earlier about the meeting that I had – the introductory meeting in the middle of September, and this didn’t have that note. So in my mind, I was like, well, what is this about? And it wasn’t clear from it being in my diary. So fine, okay, I mean, I did my box that evening but I was unclear as to what the purpose of this meeting was until I was in the meeting, and that was slightly unusual, and therefore slightly mysterious.
Mr Blake: You say you didn’t have a briefing note. Who would you have expected to have produced briefing note for that meeting?
Joanne Swinson: So my understanding of the process was that policy officials would produce briefing notes for any meetings within their policy areas, so, in this case, it would be the ShEx team, and then my Diary Secretary, who was part of my private office, would each day collate, you know, a front sheet with actually what my diary looked like and then all of the different pages in order in one folder that would then be given to me as my diary pack that, as I went about my day, my job during the day, I would take with me and be able to discard each note or each meeting back to my private secretaries as those meetings concluded.
And that would just mean that I would – and it would only come to me the night before, so it would be part of my box, but it would mean that I had, you know, some brief awareness of what was going to be in the meetings. Sometimes, depending on the size of my box, I wouldn’t actually get a chance to really read the diary pack in detail until the morning, maybe when I was on my way into the Department but, normally, I would have information about the different things in my diary.
Mr Blake: So focusing again on that word “mysterious”, is it surprising for you that your own team didn’t provide you with sufficient information before that meeting or is your concern about the meeting itself?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I mean, I think, now – you know, within the meeting it became clear that it was a serious issue and they were being – yeah, as I say, very serious about it. I mean, I don’t know whether it was – what they were happy to have committed to paper at that point, whether officials knew – I mean, I don’t know exactly how this came to be but my private secretaries would not have been in a position to be able to give me full details because they would have been asked for, you know, an important meeting. They might have been told a line or two as to why that was important. But – and I’m sure, had I been in the Department when I read that, you know, rather than being given it to go home in my box, and I’d asked them, they would have then told me, that this is about the Horizon issues.
But, as I was not physically with my private secretaries when I was reading it, because I was at home, then it wasn’t clear to me what it was until I got there.
Mr Blake: Thank you. If we scroll down, there’s nothing you’d like to add to that paragraph in respect of your recollection of the actual meeting itself, is there?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I obviously remember various conversations in the run-up to the statement in early July. What’s hard for me is to distinguish what happened in each of those conversations. So I had some briefings in my office within Parliament, as well as in the Department, because on the day of the statement I was in Parliament a lot, and so I had a little kind of cubbyhole type office within Parliament, which was so small that the officials couldn’t all fit in and get a seat, so people were sitting on kind of printer tables and somebody was being sitting on an upturned bin while I was being briefed on that.
So I have a memory of these telephone calls and briefing meetings but I don’t necessarily distinguish what happened in each one of them.
Mr Blake: The next paragraph says:
“I also recall that James Arbuthnot was identified as a key MP coordinating Parlimentarians on the issue, and I spoke with him about the issue on 3 July 2013. Following that call I asked one of my officials, Will Gibson, to follow up on various issues James had raised, one of which was the suggestion that they should speak with Second Sight on my behalf.”
Just to clarify, what exactly is being said in that final sentence there; is it that Will Gibson would liaise with Second Sight or somebody else?
Joanne Swinson: Yeah, I think it would be that Will Gibson would do that and I think there is an email that was sent between Will and possibly POL that – around about that time, I think to POL, following up on that issue. I don’t know what the outcome of that was.
Mr Blake: So you’re not aware of whether they, in fact, met or whether there was an attempt to meet them that was rejected, or anything along those lines?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t know. I think it’s possible that there was an attempt that was rejected but I haven’t seen the documents to give me confidence on what the outcome was. I don’t recall Will coming back to me with outcomes of that meeting but, equally, it’s possible that they did meet and he used that as part of his information for when he was briefing me on matters.
Mr Blake: Thank you. The Second Sight Interim Report was produced on 8 July 2013. At paragraph 23, you’ve described the run-up to your ministerial statement being rushed or very rushed. Can you expand on that, please?
Joanne Swinson: So obviously the Second Sight Report, if you see from the document trail, there were lots of emails going back and forth around Friday, 5 July and, indeed, over that weekend and, as explained before, I was not part of that email address. I was receiving my information from the Department in paper form, and so I will have gone up to the constituency as usual, with my box, on the Thursday night but a lot of things happened after that Thursday night box that I will then not have seen until I was back in the Department on the Monday and then many of those things would have been in the Monday night box.
It was a very busy time because I also, on that Tuesday when I made the statement, was doing two other debates in Parliament. So I was responding to a debate about consumer protection issues relating to gift cards, people who had been – lost money in that issue and then there was a one-and-a-half-hour debate that I had to respond to on zero hours contracts and employment protections.
So there was a lot going on and I was therefore receiving the information that had accumulated over the weekend in my box on that Monday night, alongside two other debate packs and, indeed, all of the rest of the correspondence and other submissions that were coming to me as well.
Mr Blake: Can we please look at UKGI00001693. It’s a note from Peter Batten, who is within the Shareholder Executive, 5 July 2013. He is emailing your private office and he says:
“Please see attached a short covering note setting out the key narrative and findings of the draft Second Sight Report, [the Post Office’s] proposed next steps and handling for its release on Monday, and suggested lines to take. A scanned copy of the report … is attached.”
Would you have received both the briefing and the Second Sight Report at that stage?
Joanne Swinson: On the Monday night in my box. I think I received – but I definitely will have received the briefing in that debate pack. I can’t be certain that I received the Second Sight Report, I might have done. I think it’s likely that I probably did but I can’t be as categorical about that and, as I say, it was in amongst a lot briefing notes – briefing material that I was being given and it was – you know, as a report goes, there was lines to take given but there was, you know, all of the stuff which has been since used ad nauseam by Post Office about there not being any systemic problems with the Horizon but, clearly, that was, for me, the first time I was reading that and therefore that seemed reassuring.
Mr Blake: Do you recall reading the actual report at that stage?
Joanne Swinson: No, I will – I’m certain I would not have had time to read the full report at that stage but I think it is entirely possible that I will have scanned through it. I have a memory of doing so, whether it was at that point or whether it was perhaps after the statement, I can’t be certain. But my takeaway from scanning through it was, you know, there was quite a lot that was impenetrable but there was obviously the summary that I’d received which, you know, seemed to tally up from what I saw.
Mr Blake: Let’s look at the summary. It’s UKGI00001695. Let’s start on 1.4, the summary is as follows:
“[Second Sight] report that as part of the investigation [Post Office] voluntarily admitted to having identified two ‘anomalies’ that affected 77 branches (0.65% of the network) and 12 branches (0.12% of the network) respectively. The report notes that [Post Office] took action to rectify these anomalies once they had been identified.
“On the question of the core Horizon function, [Second Sight] finds that the system achieves its intended purpose and concludes that they have ‘so far found no evidence of system wide (systemic) problems with the Horizon software’. Additionally, the report notes that the Horizon system, which involves over 65,000 users ‘operates smoothly for most subpostmasters and their staff’ all of the time.”
Were you aware at that stage that the finding regarding system-wide problems was only an interim finding?
Joanne Swinson: I think I knew it was an Interim Report and that there was – obviously, as transpired, there was further work that Second Sight were undertaking once the Working Group was set up.
Mr Blake: We then have at 1.6:
“With regard to the wider aspect of operation, [Second Sight] is more critical citing the large number of interfaces with linked systems … the complexity of some processes … and the perceived lack of training.
“Next steps
“Though [the Post Office] see the [Second Sight] Interim Report as being unsatisfactory in many respects, their current thinking is to welcome the report and to commit to work with [Second Sight], [Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance], James Arbuthnot and other MPs in implementing those changes and improvements.”
If we scroll over the page, we have then suggested lines to take. The “Suggested lines to take” are as follows, the first is:
“It is not appropriate for the [Department for Business] to comment on the details of individual operational business issues for the Post Office such as those covered in this Interim Report.
“However, [the Department] welcomes the interim report’s conclusion that there is no evidence of systemic problems with the Horizon [system].”
We see in that first bullet point there, again, the reference to an “operational matter”. Now, this is an independent report that’s been commissioned by the Post Office. We see there that it’s being addressed by the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, James Arbuthnot, Members of Parliament; is it odd that it’s still described as an “operational matter” or that you can’t comment on details of individual operational business issues?
Joanne Swinson: It didn’t strike me as odd at the time. Clearly, it was a matter which I needed to understand to the extent that I was making a statement in the House to respond to the concerns being raised by MPs. But the nature of the report was going into quite a lot of detail about issues of training and helplines, which, yeah, did strike me as largely operational matters. It felt like the role that we would play, as, you know, myself and the civil servants within the business department who were obviously acting as the shareholder, was to, you know, have confidence that it was being dealt with properly, that the concerns being expressed by MPs were being addressed, and that’s why that welcoming of that collaborative approach was certainly, from my perspective, very genuine, felt like the right thing to do, you know, in speaking with James Arbuthnot, who seemed not entirely happy but, you know, nonetheless very much in a spirit of goodwill to be able to work alongside Post Office.
I mean, that seemed to me like the best way to try to address this issue and that Post Office had recognised that there were some things that they needed to do differently. It did not, at this stage, strike me as, you know, some massive, wide issue across the Post Office.
Mr Blake: Looking at those suggested lines to take, on reflection, do you agree with those lines?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I mean, having seen the details provided to me by the Inquiry, I am staggered that I made my statement to the House of Commons on 9 July and, on 15 July, Post Office Limited received the memo, the Clarke memo, that said that the credibility of their key witness was fatally undermined. I mean, this to me at the time seemed very reasonable.
I cannot quite square in my mind how it was possible for – as a minister, you know, as the shareholder – us to be responding, me to be responding on these issues, being given this briefing and then that, you know, bombshell. I mean, I’m not a lawyer but when I read that document in the briefing notes, I – you know, I couldn’t believe it. I don’t think any – you do not need to be a lawyer. How could anyone read that document and not realise that this is something which demands urgent attention and yet where did that go?
I mean, well, we know that Paula Vennells was aware that there was problems with an unsafe witness and she never told me.
Mr Blake: Let’s stick now to the chain of events that’s happening at this particular time and let’s have a look at an email from Mr Whitehead on 8 July. That’s UKGI00001748. If we could start on page 2. I’ll just take you to a couple of documents and then we’ll take have our first morning break.
If we look over the page, please. Mr Whitehead emails your private secretary:
“Following Jo’s earlier telephone call with James Arbuthnot, suggested briefing for the Whips’ Office:
“Briefing for the Whips on James Arbuthnot tabling an Urgent Question to obtain a Ministerial statement in response to independent review by forensic accountants … of Post Office Limited’s Horizon computer system which records all transactions conducted across the entire Post Office Network.
“The issues covered by the review relate to a very small number of ex-subpostmasters whose contracts were terminated and were subsequently convicted by the Courts for false accounting or, in more serious cases, theft and fraud.”
Just pausing there, by this stage you are aware of the link to criminal prosecutions?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I was obviously aware of that in the briefing that I was receiving for preparing to give the statement in the House of Commons, which included also briefing on the disclosure requirements that Post Office Limited had to conform to as well. I don’t think I had yet entirely understood quite how exceptional the Post Office doing their own prosecutions were, but I was aware that they were prosecuting.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Then the next paragraph says:
“The report confirms that no systemic problems with the Horizon system were found but also found scope for Post Office Limited to improve aspects of its support and training for subpostmasters.”
If we scroll down towards the bottom of the page, it says:
“[James Arbuthnot] is seeking to imply that the Report suggests that new evidence might be found on the basis of which some false accounting verdicts could be challenged/appealed.”
What was your understanding of that at that particular stage?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, very little. I mean, there was – obviously James Arbuthnot was keen to make sure that the case of his constituent could be included in what would be agreed in terms of going forward, the looking at the issues, and, ultimately, there was agreement that those cases would be included. So I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t profess, you know, a strong, detailed understanding but the issue that there were some subpostmasters that had experienced convictions that also wanted to be involved in challenging those was something which was brought my attention in that note.
Mr Blake: There’s then a further version of the briefing and that can be found at UKGI00001749 and it looks as though the briefing has been updated. We can see there, there’s still the reference on the third paragraph down that “The report confirms that no systemic problems with the Horizon system were found”, but then if we scroll down it says:
“During his conversation with Jo Swinson this morning James Arbuthnot agreed that the report was better than expected and acknowledged that it did not point to any wide-scale problems with the Horizon system.
“However he believes that the report provides evidence that some of the convictions of subpostmasters who plead guilty to false accounting were unsafe and he would like the Government to intervene to offer some form of redress or to reopen these verdicts.
“We would strongly reject the suggestion that it is the role of either [the Post Office] or Government to intervene to reopen the cases of individual subpostmasters as Mr Arbuthnot appeared to suggest.”
Was that a view that you had, that you shared?
Joanne Swinson: So I think there’s two different elements of that sentence and I strongly agreed with one of those at the time, and I think that’s the one that really stuck in my mind at the time, which was that it was not for Government to intervene. And I appreciate this is not an easy thing to hear but it was – for those people whose lives have been ruined – but it was something which I did feel very strongly when I stood up in the House of Commons to make a statement that there is a responsibility for there to be a separation between the judicial process and the Government and it was absolutely right for MPs to be advocating the case of their constituents. It was the type of thing which, you know, I would have done, for from my constituents too, that was absolutely the right thing for them to be doing.
But I felt, as a minister, I was in a different position of responsibility, vis à vis the court process and its independence, and that it would be very dangerous territory to have a minister standing at the despatch box in the House of Commons second-guessing or throwing doubt on the decisions that the courts had made.
In this – looking at this sentence now, I can see that the POL is also included in that and I think, looking at this now, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that it was not the role of POL to intervene to reopen the cases. I think that, clearly, the disclosure duty is clear that, if evidence is found, then POL should be proactively giving that information to anybody who has been convicted and their defence teams. So I didn’t clock that at the time. I did strongly agree with the advice that I was being given about ministers being careful, and I – that weighed on me quite strongly. I recall in the statement that, you know, I wanted to be constructive and helpful but there was a line that I felt it was important that I didn’t cross.
Mr Blake: Thank you.
Sir, that might be an appropriate moment to take our first morning break.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, by all means, Mr Blake.
Mr Blake: Can we come back at 11.10, please?
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
(10.57 am)
(A short break)
(11.10 am)
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. Can you see and hear me?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Mr Blake: Ms Swinson, I’d like to turn to your witness statement. I’m going to look at page 12, paragraph 25. It says:
“The Inquiry has shown me an email chain between Paula Vennells and other [Post Office] executives dated 6-8 July, in which Paula Vennells comments that: ‘I have also spoken to Jo Swinson again today … who remains supportive about our actions and relatively relaxed about the situation’. I cannot recall details of the specific conversation on this date and confidently distinguish it from others I had with Ms Vennells on these issues. I think it was a telephone call. On another occasion I recall Ms Vennells explaining to me in a tone of taking me into her confidence, with something of a pained expression, that while it was a sad situation, the reality was that some subpostmasters ‘had their fingers in the till’ or something to that effect. From the context of the concerns being raised by James Arbuthnot and other MPs I did recognise that there was a real need for [Post Office] to deal with and resolve the issues especially around training and support”, et cetera.
Now, it is very important for the Inquiry for you to be as specific as you can on this. What is your best recollection of precisely what was said?
Joanne Swinson: Just to be clear, are you asking about the telephone call that Paula Vennells is commenting on or the second element that was a different occasion?
Mr Blake: The second –
Joanne Swinson: I’ll be really straightforward, I’m not going to be able to give you the exact words that Paula used, it was more than a decade ago and so what remains in my memory is the impression that it made, not exactly the words that she said.
But what she was trying to clearly reassure – well, reassure me, but explain to me, was sort of saying that, you know, although – and as say, these are not words, these are my impression of what she was saying – that, although these might seem to be lovely people, clearly some of them are actually just at it, is what she was trying to convey. And it was, as I say, that tone of “We have looked into this and, you know, it is very sad but that is just the reality, and so we have to act”. So that’s what I recall from that, as I say, with the caveat that I don’t know the exact words.
Mr Blake: Can you assist us with the timing: is it in a similar period to 6 to 8 July?
Joanne Swinson: I’m pretty sure it will have been because this was a point where I had the briefing meeting in June, I think, June at some point – without access to the diary, I don’t know exactly the date – and that there was clearly telephone calls. It could have been in that June meeting, I would have been asking questions about this, you know, querying it because, of course, MPs are raising concerns on behalf of their constituents, and so this was Paula Vennells saying to me that, yeah, basically just some of these subpostmasters are guilty.
Mr Blake: What role did that have in the thinking that you had at that time?
Joanne Swinson: At that time, the related context is around the numbers that I was being told, so – and all of the briefings were about the millions of transactions, the – you know, not just the 11,500 branch subpostmasters but also all of their staff, so the tens of thousands of Horizon users, and that this is a minuscule, tiny proportion and, of course, the figures I was being told of how many cases at that point, you know, there was, I think, 14 in the one of the briefings around this point. I think later on, even in 2015, when I asked about which criminal cases remained that would not then be mediated, it was 37.
So those numbers were, you know, a smallish proportion of a very large number and it didn’t seem to me to be impossible that there would be some fraud within the Post Office but I would have thought it would have been a small amount and that the numbers that were being given to me seemed to be small amounts.
I did ask for specific statistics. I think this was in response to reading the briefing pack because, having seen the emails that my private office sent on the morning of the statement of 9 July, I think I asked for, you know, a breakdown of how many of the subpostmasters had been convicted of fraud or theft or false accounting, how many cases had actually gone to court and the subpostmaster been found not guilty.
I asked for that breakdown as was detailed in that email but I don’t think it was actually provided. And, I have to say, one of the things that I regret is that I didn’t specifically chase that. I mean, the context of, you know, the number of questions I would ask in any individual ministerial box, we’d be talking dozens because, on each submission, I might be making four or five questions so, you know, I do recall early on with my private office sort of saying to them, you know, probably in September or October, “Look I keep asking you all these questions and responding to things, how are we keeping track of this? Am I supposed to, you know, keep a note of what I’ve asked?” And I remember my Private Secretary, Head of Private Office, Emily, saying to me, “Look, you just have to trust us that we follow these things up, that’s our job, and you can’t possibly know all of it”.
So, I do –
Mr Blake: I’ll take you –
Joanne Swinson: – think I asked for that data, which probably would have been quite instructive to help me understand the context of the balance of the numbers.
Mr Blake: I’ll take you to that email correspondence shortly.
Could we, before we get to that, please, turn to FUJ00174749. This is an internal Fujitsu email, so it’s not a document or email you will have seen at the time, but it refers to a meeting you had and I’d just like to see if you recall anything from that. It’s FUJ00174749.
We can see at the bottom half of that page, please, it’s an email within Fujitsu and it’s referring to a conversation with Paula Vennells:
“A very good conversation – headlines are:
“Paula is very appreciative of our support (and recognises how much we have been supporting them).
“[The Post Office Account] have made a choice not to engage publicly in response to the story as it hasn’t taken off that much.
“Paula described herself as being ‘mildly troubled’ by it – which is a change from this being a top priority a week ago.
“[Post Office Account] are now looking at what they need to do in response to the report eg increase postmaster training – this is a work in progress for them.”
Then it’s this paragraph:
“A question is going to be asked in Parliament about the report. Jo Swinson has chosen to answer it personally rather than have a written answer (because she believes she can kill it more easily by being there in person). Lesley has been over at Parliament this morning briefing Jo (not sure if Paula was also there).”
I’m going to break that final one down into two: the first is the reference to you being able to kill it more easily by being there in person.
Joanne Swinson: Mr Blake, you showed me this for the first time this morning and we had a discussion about whether the word I used on seeing this was appropriate to repeat in the Inquiry. Let’s just say this is rubbish because that’s probably more appropriate language for the Inquiry transcript.
I mean, it’s – that was not the case. I mean, it’s wrong on various levels. I mean, the most important being that this was not about “killing it” but also it just is – it just doesn’t actually make sense because it wasn’t my choice ever to be able to give a written answer. So the way Parliament works, which as I explain in my statement was not necessarily well understood, even by the BIS Parliamentary Office, let alone by – I think you said this was an email from Fujitsu.
If James Arbuthnot wanted to raise a question in Parliament as an urgent question, that would be up to the speaker to decide whether or not that should be an urgent question and that would be answered in person at the despatch box and the only choice the Government would have would be whether to answer it as an urgent question or potentially, which is what we did, was to pre-empt that by making a ministerial statement, which in many ways is a bit more respectful to the issue because it is the Government coming forward and also actually was easier from logistical perspective when I had three debates that day, to do, to have some degree more of control about the timing because, obviously, not turning up for the debate on zero hours contracts would also have been disrespectful to Parliament.
So that needed to be managed. So yeah, it always needed to be answered in person and this was just the difference about whether we would wait for James Arbuthnot to lay an urgent question or whether we would make a ministerial statement.
Mr Blake: In respect of the second part, “Lesley has been over Parliament this morning briefing Jo (not sure if Paula was there)”, do you recall meeting Lesley Sewell at Parliament?
Joanne Swinson: Ooh. I know there were various officials there. I mean, I mentioned my small Parliamentary office and it was a bit crammed but it was a small office, there was probably at least five or six different people in there. I would have known in particular who the ones were from the ShEx team, who I was familiar with from being briefed by them regularly. It’s entirely feasible and, indeed probably likely, that there were one or two people from POL there, in terms of giving me information to make sure that any questions that I was asking in advance of the statement – to make sure that I knew what answers to give because I knew that I would be asked lots of questions by MPs at that point. Clearly having a to and fro to Post Office where we had to send emails was not going to work with the urgency of the situation.
Mr Blake: Do you recall if Paula Vennells was there?
Joanne Swinson: I’m pretty sure she wasn’t there that day. I do recall speaking to her on the telephone and so, yeah, I mean I probably couldn’t be 100 per cent on that but I would be 95 per cent sure she wasn’t there on that day.
Mr Blake: We have an email from Paula Vennells about what occurred on that day. Can we please have a look at that, that’s POL00099156. That’s the top email, an internal email but she says as follows:
“I will also send over a summary of Jo Swinson’s statement in the [House of Commons]. She was good and fielded difficult questions well for us.”
Now, at that stage, did you consider it your job to be fielding questions on behalf of the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: When those questions were being posed in Parliament, yes, because there was no alternative. Paula Vennells could not stand up at the despatch box in the House of Commons so any questions about the Post Office would need to be fielded by me, in the same way if there were questions about the Competition and Markets Authority or the Equality and Human Rights Commission, or any of these other bodies that fell within my portfolio; Parliamentary Questions needed to be responded to by a minister.
Mr Blake: Can we now turn to UKGI00001852. This is the email I think you were referring to earlier. If we turn to page 2, we see at the bottom of page 2, we see an email from Peter Batten at ShEx to Rodric Williams at the Post Office and that’s on 9 July at 9.39 in the morning:
“I left a voicemail about the Second Sight Report. We are likely to have to make a statement to Parliament this lunch time. Jo Swinson’s office has urgently requested information about the number of convictions. Will spoke to you at the end of the meeting on Friday about this, and it would be great if you could send over your findings as soon as possible.”
If we then scroll up on the page, it sets out the information that you were requesting:
“How many of the [subpostmasters] have had their contracts terminated?
“How many of the [subpostmasters] were convicted of respectively fraud, theft and false accounting?
“In each category, how many of those convicted pled [sic] guilty?
“How many (if any) were prosecuted but found not guilty?”
If we scroll over the page to page 1, Susan Crichton responds internally and says, “On to it”, or in fact still to the same chain. She responds to Will Gibson and says:
“Will – we are working on this, will get it through to you [as soon as possible].”
That’s 9 July. We’re now at 10.36.
There’s then an email on 16 July, so a considerable time after, from Peter Batten at ShEx, and he says:
“Did Susan, Rodric or Martin ever come back to either of you on this? (I know POL often drop me off their copy lists – I try not to take it personally).”
If we scroll up the page, a response from Mr Whitehead says:
“Sadly they have a habit of dropping everybody off when we seek ‘awkward’ data. I have not seen anything and my guess is that without a chaser, they’ll unilaterally decide we don’t need it!”
Can you explain your understanding, at that particular time, of difficulties getting information from the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: It’s not something I was aware of. This issue that Mike is expressing in the email, which I think does speak volumes, given what we know now, was not something that was brought my attention at the time and, as I said, I did rely on my private office and my officials to chase the many questions that I asked. But I, you know, do think this is pretty shocking and I think it’s – on two levels. I mean, just on one level that I was answering questions in Parliament and needed information and, you know, needed it to be able to give good answers to the people who were asking me questions, you know, who, let’s remember, are speaking there on behalf of their constituents who have been affected by these issues, right?
So that, you know, that has an importance attached to it. So if I’m asking for that information, it should be provided in a timely way and it certainly shouldn’t be something that needs to be chased.
But then it’s also problematic because, if this is the experience that ShEx are having, that, I think, points to potential deeper problems with what Post Office is willing to provide and that would raise some alarm bells, but it’s not something that was raised with me at the time.
Mr Blake: In terms of timing, 8 August was then the first meeting of the Working Group and I’d like now to take you to September. Can we look at POL00196410. Could we please turn to page 4. There’s an email, if we scroll down, from Alan Bates, to a number of people: Paula Vennells, Susan Crichton, Angela van den Bogerd. You were copied in, “swinsonmpstcorrespondence”, is that your constituency email account?
Joanne Swinson: No, “mpstcorrespondence” – so like the “Swinson MPST” address was my private office, this would be the correspondence office for my portfolio?
Mr Blake: Thank you. This is the correspondence that the Inquiry has seen number of times regarding Mr Griffiths:
“This afternoon I received the following email, it is a prime example of the thuggery being exerted on the defenceless subpostmasters.”
If we scroll up we can see on page 3, at the bottom of page 3, Stephen Mosley MP says that he will forward it to you. If we keep on scrolling up, Mr Bates responds, and he says:
“I did send a copy of my email to Jo Swinson who I have been in contact with over subpostmaster issues since she was appointed. I have also met with her two predecessors …”
Then if we go to page 1, we have Mr Mosely’s letter to you, which says:
“Dear Jo
“Please find attached a copy of correspondence recently received from Mr Alan Bates … regarding his concerns relating to the suicide attempt of my constituent Mr Martin Griffiths, subpostmaster …”
I think you said in your statement you don’t recall seeing this correspondence; is that correct?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t recall seeing it and I’m very sorry about that and it’s clearly describing incredibly tragic events.
Mr Blake: Who would have been responsible for bringing this to your attention?
Joanne Swinson: Well, in the normal course of events, correspondence would come to me through the correspondence office in my stack of nightly correspondence, and so that would be the normal way in which correspondence would make its way to me. In some cases – I think this is one that would certainly qualify – there would be an argument for raising it maybe in a submission and bringing it to my attention in a way that was more significant than one letter among many in correspondence.
Mr Blake: So is it your evidence it’s likely that you would have received it in a pack because it’s correspondence from a fellow Parliamentarian –
Joanne Swinson: I mean –
Mr Blake: – or you don’t recall?
Joanne Swinson: I think that is likely but I do not recall it and, of course, the content is such that I think I – you know, I mean, my instinct is that it’s the kind of thing that you would recall. But I’m sorry, I can’t give any more detail than that because I don’t have a memory of receiving it.
Mr Blake: Thank you. That can come down. Thank you. Now, in terms of timing, 18 December 2013 to 30 June 2014 was your period of maternity leave. As we discussed earlier, in the meantime Mr Callard became the Head of the Post Office Shareholder Team in January 2014 and he became the Non-Executive Director on the Post Office Board in March 2014. Had you met Mr Callard at all before your maternity leave?
Joanne Swinson: No, not to my knowledge. I suppose it’s possible I could have been introduced to him just as I was leaving if it had already been confirmed that he was taking over from Will but I think it’s unlikely.
Mr Blake: Can we turn to UKGI00042677. This a Shareholder Executive presentation from February 2014, so you would have been on maternity leave at the time of this presentation. It’s a presentation the Inquiry has seen before. If we could turn to page 6, please. It says, on the left-hand side:
“There is a general feeling that Paula is not the optimal person to lead [the Post Office] to deliver its commercial strategy.
“Paula has not been able to establish good working relationships with Jo Swinson.
“She has been unable to retain key staff.”
Just pausing there, was that an accurate reflection of your relationship?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t think it was. I’m not going to say there were never any frustrations with the Post Office. I, you know, was asking for more information on the speed of Network Transformation to make sure that the future of the network would be secure but, you know, I engaged with Paula regularly and I felt we did have quite a good working relationship, so I don’t really know where that particular sentence has come from, and it was a big surprise to me when I saw it come forward in the pack and, indeed, when it was, I think, put to Alice Perkins.
Mr Blake: “Performance as CEO and deliver of strategy plan:
“[Post Office] failed to deliver its 2010 strategic plan … She has shown a worrying lack of knowledge about the detail of the new plan.
“Paula’s people management has caused concern as she appears unable to work with personalities and approximate that differ from hers, and has failed to build relationships with key Directors.
“Paula’s performance as CEO has been questioned by the [Post Office] Chair and by members of the Board.
“Engagement with Ministers and stakeholders
“Paula has not developed strong relationships with stakeholders. The scale of change envisaged under the strategic plan requires a visible, dynamic and charismatic leader able to re-engage and energise the relationship with stakeholders.
“This includes engaging with BIS Ministers. Over the past year, Paula has repeatedly overpromised and underdelivered.”
You said in your statement that this wasn’t something you were aware of?
Joanne Swinson: No, I mean, this is quite a shocking document to see, right? When you talk about what might be operational matters and what might be strategic matters, I recognise and I know this Inquiry has interrogated that distinction, and sometimes there might be a degree of grey area, whether something is operational or strategic.
But “Is the Chief Executive fit to do the job?” Really, pretty clearly, strategic, right? Right up there with something that is strategic. And, therefore, I just can’t understand how, you know, the Department of which I was a minister, has a slide deck which is talking about the removal of the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited without actually talking to ministers about that. I mean, it just stuns me that that can be happening.
I appreciate, you know, as I think Richard Callard said later, there’s an issue about at what stage you might raise concerns with ministers and it probably wouldn’t be the first time you had an inkling that there might be an issue but, at the point at which you’re creating a whole, like, PowerPoint deck about it, clearly the time has come that ministers need to be engaged in this discussion and I would argue not actually just the person who was in my role as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, but this is something that which, at the Secretary of State level, should have been discussed.
So I’m pretty shocked and obviously I was on maternity leave, so I wouldn’t have expected personally to know this at this point and, just for context, about November ‘13, a few weeks before I went off on maternity leave, I received a submission about Paula Vennells’ remuneration, advising me that “We wish to retain her as a Director and we don’t think any downward pressure on pay is appropriate at this point”.
So just a matter of weeks after that, we’ve got to this situation. I think that feels very strange and, although I wouldn’t have expected to know about this at the time because I was on maternity leave, Jenny Willott, who was covering for me, should have been appraised, as should Vince Cable.
Mr Blake: Let’s move on to when you’re going to be returning. Can we please look at UKGI00002288, please. If we look at the bottom email:
“An update on some plans in train to support Jo Swinson’s return from maternity leave. We expect Jo to return to BIS/GEO around the end of June – but will confirm this once definitive. Jenny will continue as Minister, taking all decisions, until Jo’s return.
“Briefing Jo
“We are starting to brief Jo more regularly on some of the developments since her maternity leave. We will begin this in May through catch-ups between Jo and Jenny, as well as with private office.
“We then propose to do some high level one-hour briefing sessions between Jo and each of her main directorates in early June”, one of those being Post Office.
If we scroll up, please, there’s an email from Mr Callard to Peter Batten. He says as follows:
“See below, please can you start putting some thought into this. Clearly we will have our priorities to discuss, but you will have a better idea of what her priorities might be than I will, as we will have to address those as well. We might want to also think about how many sessions we might need – eg I want to get her in the right place on Sparrow!”
Looking back at those early briefings, what do you understand that to have meant? I know it’s not you that’s writing it but if you reflect on the briefing that you did ultimately receive.
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I think the contrast is very illustrative here. So we’ve got an email where Richard Callard is saying, “I want to get her in the right place on Sparrow” – and I didn’t know what Sparrow was but obviously do now – and, if you contrast that with the note that I actually received when coming back from maternity leave about Post Office Limited, there is, I think, one sentence on Horizon, which is incredibly bland. It is buried in a paragraph called “Exceptional items”, it isn’t even highlighted as a risk, and it basically says that “The Working Group is set up, progress is a bit slower than we would have hope and Post Office is seeking assurance on its position”.
And, you know, that’s a very kind of ‘nothing to see here’ sort of sentence and so I just think that’s a really interesting contrast, right? You know, that he was not actually giving me information about what was happening in Sparrow, and we know he wasn’t because now when we look at the minutes of the Sparrow meetings, it’s actually the opposite of what I was being told.
So the Sparrow meetings were talking about reducing the role of Second Sight, which was never mentioned to me, even in the final conversations that we had nearly a year later, “What about the closure of the Working Group”, right? It was never mentioned in any of the subsequent points when, you know, knowing that Second Sight were important to me, when I came back from maternity leave, when I was asking questions about Horizon in September, when I was preparing for the Westminster Hall debate.
I mean, if a civil servant knew that Second Sight’s investigation was important to me and that Post Office were thinking of reducing their role, I mean that’s something he should have been warning me about that was a problem, rather than hiding from me. And then we had what they were planning to do with the Working Group. Again, looking at the Sparrow minutes from that time, around about this April 2014 period, where they were basically saying that they were going to reinterpret how they engaged with the Mediation Scheme within that existing terms of reference and I mean, in a sense, when you see that, it’s no wonder that trust broke down and that that all ground to a halt later that year. But when that trust was breaking down, I was being briefed by them, that this was because other people were trying to extend the scope of the scheme.
I mean, it’s Orwellian, frankly. They were saying themselves that they were basically going to change the way they engaged with the scheme and then told me that other people were reinterpreting it or extending the scope. So, I mean, to me, I just cannot understand how a civil servant could operate in that way and I just want to say, because I obviously have in my witness statement been critical of Richard Callard, it is totally not the experience that I had dealing with dozens of civil servants across so many different areas of my brief.
My general experience of dealing with civil servants was that they were diligent, they were thoughtful, they were respectful of Parliament, they cared about the issues and how they affected members of the public –
Mr Blake: Dealing with this particular individual –
Joanne Swinson: – and this was totally contrary to that.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Could we please turn to UKGI00002439, please. We’re now in August 2014. Six months have passed since that presentation regarding the performance of Ms Vennells. It’s an email from Mr Callard to your private office. He says:
“Claire
“Thanks for the discussion today – very helpful. I have attached the notes that I mentioned – Alice saw the first iteration, I have just sent this second iteration to her and thought it might be expedient that you see it sooner rather than later. I would be grateful if you could flag any potential ‘red rags’ in here.
“Just to be clear, this is not a speaking note as such, it’s too long for that. It’s something just to get thoughts in some sort of order but it gives you the general gist of our arguments.
“If you do have a word with Jo prior to the meeting I would be grateful for any readout if you get chance.”
So this seems to be a document that has been seen by Alice Perkins at the Post Office, and it’s not a speaking note but it is some thoughts. We’ll come and look at the content but what is your general view of the appropriateness of that being sent to your private office for their comments before being seen or being discussed with you?
Joanne Swinson: So just to put this in context, this is about the issue of the remuneration of a potential new Chief Finance Officer and an amount of money that then would need to be paid to the existing Chief Finance Officer to encourage his exit.
And I referred just now to a submission that I received in November 2013 which said we wish to retain Paula Vennells, it also said we wish to retain Chris Day as the Chief Finance Officer and we don’t want any downward pressure on their remuneration at this time because they are both in place, and doing well.
That was just before I went on maternity leave and then literally days after I returned from maternity leave, having had the kind of briefing meetings where I was brought back up to speed and no concerns raised about the performance of the senior executives of the Post Office, beyond a note in the briefing that said they’d made some changes around HR, and so on, I then received this note that says, “We would like you to write to Danny Alexander to ask for exceptional permission to appoint a new Chief Finance Officer for Post Office Limited”, on a salary which was more than £500, and also to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on an exit payment for the existing Chief Finance Officer, to which I, perhaps quite understandably, was rather shocked because I’d never heard of a suggestion that we needed to replace the Chief Finance Officer and thought that would have been something that I perhaps should have known about if that was the case, before the point at which they were asking me to approach Danny Alexander, who was the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, for permission.
And the permission would have been needed because the sums involved were of a level that needed approval because they were exceptional in terms of the levels of pay and, in the context, of course, at the time, we’re in incredibly difficult financial circumstances, the Government making all sorts of really heartrending decisions about budgets.
So my instinct was, you know, if I’m going to ask Danny Alexander for money it’s probably not going to be for hundreds of thousands of pounds for Post Office Executives, when you’ve just told me the current Chief Finance Officer is doing a perfectly good job.
Mr Blake: If I could just pause you there, we’re both going to get in trouble with the Stenographer?
Joanne Swinson: Okay.
Mr Blake: Can I ask you to ideally keep your answers relatively short and relatively slow, if possible.
Joanne Swinson: Okay, so that was the context and I then had some back and forth, when I responded to that submission, and I said no, I’m not happy to send this letter to Danny Alexander, and there was pushback and I think there were some meetings with officials, I think that this was in advance of a call that Alice Perkins was planning to have with me that Friday.
Mr Blake: Shall we look at the document itself?
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: Let’s look at it, UKGI00002440. So this is the attachment to the email. I think your evidence is that you didn’t see this attachment?
Joanne Swinson: No.
Mr Blake: It in fact wasn’t intended to be seen by you, it was your understanding?
Joanne Swinson: That’s right and, indeed, they were asking my private office to sort of give them a bit of intelligence about whether this would be a “red rag”, presumably meaning to a bull. And, you know – I mean, given that it was the Government’s policy to have pay restraint in difficult financial circumstances, you know, reading this now, you know, it’s very shocking that, you know, that this is what they were trying to do.
And, indeed, that they hadn’t been straightforward in the note that they clearly sent me in July about why they wanted a new Chief Finance Officer.
Mr Blake: So let’s have a read. It says:
“As you know, ShEx and the Board are clear the current CFO is not the right person to take the company forward given the challenges it faces.”
If we skip down, it says:
“You know all that and on reflection we should have approached you earlier. However, we want to explain to you why we need to come and see you on this, and why Alice and the chair of the RemCo want to meet you and Vince.
“The difficulties on the CFO front have brought forward the concerns the Board (and ShEx) has about the CEO, which you need to be aware of, and which puts the appointment of a new CFO in a wider context.
“The Board’s concern over the performance of the CEO has been growing for some time, and has only recently got to the point where it feels it needs to act in due course.
“But this leaves the Board in a difficult place – removing a CEO without a confident CFO capable of holding the fort is a big risk. This makes replacing the CFO all the more important, which explains the Board’s heightened concern and why Alice wants to talk to you and Vince in person.”
So very briefly, just to summarise, the proposal is a new CFO because we want to replace the CEO and we can’t do that until we have a good CFO in place; is that correct?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, and that – I mean, that is not what I was told but that’s what this note is arguing and this is clearly after a period of time where they have done a full recruitment process. So this is clearly at the end of probably at least two to three months of them taking action on this in terms of recruiting headhunters to be able to search the field, conducting interviews, going through all of those steps while not briefing me on it and, even then, not telling me that they had these concerns about the Chief Executive.
Mr Blake: I mean, if you scroll down, he seems to posit a question:
“Why haven’t you told me about the CEO before? Why didn’t it form part of the CFO advice?”
The bullet points there say:
“Removing the CEO is a very dangerous and destabilising thing to do – it’s not something the Board takes lightly so it needed to be certain before coming to you.
“We are also conscious that the moment we tell you about Paula, your relationship with her is irrevocably changed.
“The Board has been monitoring the situation for some time but until recently have felt that the balance of risk pointed towards keeping Paula in place, given the uncertainty and difficulty of appointing a successor …
“There are a number of reasons why this balance has now changed:
“Efforts to improve her performance have failed.
“The Board is increasingly frustrate with the lack of progress …”
Reference there to specific business areas like Horizon and the strategy in general:
“This crystallised for the Board at the June away day, where Paula very much sat back and let her team lead – she acts more like a [Non-Executive Director] than someone who leads from the front.”
If we go over the page, please. There’s a section there on “What is wrong with the CEO?”, and we see there, for example:
“Issues like the Horizon Mediation Scheme and Financial Services have required significantly more oversight by the Board than one might expect as things haven’t been gripped …”
Then there’s a section on why a new CEO would require higher remuneration and then, “What have you done to put measures in place to improve her performance?”:
“Alice has spent an enormous amount of time coaching, mentoring and monitoring Paula.
“Important to note that Alice has significant [Non-Executive Director] experience … huge amount of experience in knowing what can and can’t be done with both Paula and Chris.
“Paula responded to initial efforts to improve performance … but this has levelled off and is ultimately about character and aptitude.”
Mr Callard’s evidence to this Inquiry was that he probably presented his case to you in accordance with this note; is that your recollection?
Joanne Swinson: Absolutely not, and it’s something which I think I would have recalled because one point I would agree with from that to note is that it’s the kind of information that would irrevocably change my relationship with Paula, and the way in which I interpreted what she was telling me and the assurances that she was giving me, and that, you know, I obviously did engage with Paula on a regular basis, and the assurances that she gave me, you know, personal assurances, as well as in writing, on Horizon actually were very important.
They were not received with the knowledge that she was somebody who lacked “grip and pace” on the issue of Horizon and, I mean, if this was the view of the BIS civil servants, I mean, arguably probably fairly, given what we now know, then it also I think raises questions about how they were probing the information that they were getting from Post Office Limited about Horizon in general terms, if they felt that that had not been properly gripped.
But this – these concerns were not put to me. I mean, I don’t know exactly the chronology of what happened. There were – I do recall having a meeting but I think it may have been in July shortly after the submission. Ultimately, I was not happy to approve the extra money but I do know that it went to the Secretary of State, Vince Cable, who ultimately did write the letter to the Treasury. So I don’t know the chronology of what conversations were then had with Vince.
Mr Blake: Can we please then turn to UKGI00002472. We’re moving on a few weeks later now and this is a briefing for you on Second Sight’s thematic report, which has been leaked.
I’ll just read to you a few paragraphs from that:
“A report leaked yesterday is critical of [Post Office’s] Horizon accounting system …”
In italics below that it says:
“It is important to stress that despite a year’s worth of investigation [the Post Office] and independent investigators Second Sight, no systemic or technical deficiencies have been found with the Horizon system.”
If we scroll down, the same form of words is in bold there, and it says:
“… and the flavour of the report reflects [the Post Office’s] general concern that Second Sight has not been as objective or forensic as they might otherwise have been given their role.”
It sets out “Further detail”:
“The Mediation Scheme has been a significant concern to [the Post Office] for some time. Whilst no substantial issues with the Horizon system have been found, their concerns include the following:
“They consider that independent investigators Second Sight have ‘gone native’ and are unduly taking the side of JFSA. This is supported by the fact that [Second Sight] have admitted privately that they find it emotionally difficult to opine against [subpostmasters], regardless of the circumstances …
“[Second] Claims in the thematic report (and the individual reports on each case prepared by [Second Sight]) have generally been unsubstantiated. For example, [Second Sight] claim that power loss can lead to data loss for the [subpostmaster], creating discrepancies between cash accounted for in Horizon and cash in the safe or till. There is no evidence to support these claims.
“[Second Sight] do not sufficiently acknowledge that the relationship between [Post Office] and [subpostmaster] is one of principal and subcontractor …”
In the final bullet point on that page:
“A number of the reports written by [Second Sight] in relation to individual cases have been rejected by Tony Hooper, on the basis that the claims are unsubstantiated. In such cases he has tasked [Second Sight] with rewriting the report. It is not clear why he has not treated this report similarly.”
If we go over the page, please.
“[Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance] has had difficulty in accepting that some cases will not warrant mediation, because the SPM was clearly at fault or was victim of fraud by their own staff.
“Second Sight has continued to widen the scope of the investigation rather than focus on the Horizon system, prolonging the investigations and increasing costs …
“Meanwhile, whilst the Mediation Scheme continues, expectations around possible compensation have grown to potentially unrealistic levels.”
We will see that this was sent by Mr Callard. Perhaps we could turn to UKGI00007352, and if we start on page 2. This was from your private office to Mr Callard, and it says:
“The minister was grateful for this briefing and commented that she found it very useful. I would like to add my thanks for the quick turnaround!
“She had one question with regards to the following paragraph: ‘A number of the reports written by [Second Sight] in relation to individual cases have been rejected by Tony Hooper …’”
That’s the passage I just took you to:
“She’d like to know if we can ask him for more details and wondered if the fact that he hadn’t asked the report to be rewritten meant that he had found the report credible? She’d been keen for further clarification on this. She commented that she found it difficult to just accept [the Post Office’s] analysis of the report without evidence.
“For the future, please keep private office copied in on any newsworthy developments. I think we were fairly lucky that this story didn’t gain much traction and Jo wasn’t asked to comment. It is really important that we are aware of these kinds of events so that Jo feels prepared and sighted on issues within her portfolio.”
So we’ve highlighted two paragraphs there. Let’s start with the first of those paragraphs. Can you assist us with what your concern was?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I mean, this is one of the submissions where I really so wish that my handwritten notes had been preserved because, reading between the lines of the private office email, I was not best pleased to see this particular thing. I mean, obviously we’ve got the nice, diplomatic private office bit at the beginning, saying “It was very useful but here’s the real question and you’ve got to keep us informed in the future”.
So, you know, there was that paragraph about the reports. I’d previously been told that Second Sight’s Report’s quality had been questioned by Sir Anthony Hooper and, clearly, I think that was intended to reduce my view of Second Sight’s credibility. But I obviously was picking up on the fact that he hadn’t made any kind of rejection of this report and, therefore, that might suggest that he found it credible and I thought he was a particularly important person to listen to on this matter because he was somebody who had a great, you know, career as a Court of Appeal judge and as somebody who would be able to be objective, and also used to dealing with events and cases that were complex, where different issues were being put forward.
So I was being very questioning about that matter.
I would be keen, if it’s possible, to just point to one other thing in that briefing note, which at the time, you know, if anything, I probably found reassuring but, with the benefit of the subsequent information I’ve seen by the Inquiry, is deeply troubling to me, which was the point on the previous page that sets out some of the cases that had been settled and mediated. So that was in the note itself.
Mr Blake: Shall we go back?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, that would be really helpful.
Mr Blake: That’s UKGI00002472.
Joanne Swinson: It was on the second page. So this paragraph that starts:
“In those cases that have been mediated or settled, POL considers it should have conducted itself better operationally, but it is important to stress that these are not system related.”
I think I would have taken some comfort from that fact, that the Mediation Scheme was, you know, finding that there were issues but they were not systemic or showing wider problems.
But when I look at the Sparrow minutes from April, where it is minuted that they should accelerate the specific cases that are not thematic because it might be used to well to show the Minister, I mean, I consider that that is, you know, a premeditated manipulation of the Working Group process, specifically designed to reassure me that there isn’t a problem, by presenting cases which are not representative, as one imagines in anything like this, there might be some simpler cases, by presenting those as representative of the vast number of subpostmaster cases.
And – I mean, to me, that just feels duplicitous to actually set out to prioritise those cases so that they can then pretend me that those are representative. And, I mean, there maybe was a case for, you know, making the simple cases go first, to build everyone’s confidence in the scheme and, you know, get some cases done, but to show them to me as if they are representative, as has been presented in this note, I mean, as I say, again, just feels to me the opposite of what civil servants should be doing and the opposite of what my general experience was of dealing with civil servants.
Mr Blake: Thank you. If we turn back to the email chain, then. That’s UKGI00007352. I’m going to ask you about the second of those bullet points that we looked at – sorry, the second of the highlights that we looked at. So that’s page 2 at the bottom of that email:
“For the future, please keep private office copied in …”
Was there a concern at that stage about the level of information that you were being given?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I think that the genesis of this note, and the reason why my private office is thanking them for the quick turnaround, was that it was one that didn’t come from them to us, as would often be the case and, indeed, you know, from the earlier letters I signed, that I would be regularly updated on progress with the scheme, we would have anticipated. But, instead, I think this was in response to some media reports of the leak of the second – Part Two of the Second Sight Report, that went to the Working Group members and so, you know, in response to that, myself or my private office have then asked for a note.
So yeah, that did raise a concern and, very firmly, officials were being told by my private office that they needed to be more on it, in terms of making sure that I was abreast of what was going on.
Mr Blake: Thank you. If we turn to the response from Mr Batten on the first page, from the Shareholder Executive, he address the point about why hasn’t Sir Anthony Hooper rejected this. He distinguishes between what were the case reports and what is the Second Sight thematic report. If we scroll down it says as follows:
“The report that Richards email referred to has become known as the ‘thematic report’ and the intention had been that it was produced as a generic reference document for use during the mediation process. To be clear, although the Working Group can recommend a case for mediation, it plays no role in that mediation, which is between the applicant and the Post Office as the two involved parties. There is no role for Tony Hooper in the mediation process either. ShEx officials understand that the mediation process does not involve the Working Group, Tony Hooper has taken the view that Thematic Report is outside of his remit. The fact that he didn’t ask for the thematic report to be rewritten does not suggest that he found it credible.
“Given the high number of objections that the Post Office has flagged about Second Sight’s thematic report … it is perhaps unlikely that any report will satisfy all parties.”
Then it’s the final sentence there:
“It is not, at this point in time, appropriate to ask Tony Hooper for more details about his views on a report that is still confidential from the perspective of the Working Group.”
Were you told this at the time?
Joanne Swinson: I’m sure this will have been relayed to me, not necessarily with this full email but possibly in a cover note from my private office. And I think – obviously, there was a confidentiality issue, I could appreciate that, but I had thought it would be very helpful at this point to get the views of Sir Anthony Hooper because of his objective and independent position. Clearly there was strong pushback against that at this point from ShEx.
Mr Blake: You described it as pushback, looking at that final sentence, to be told that it’s not appropriate to ask Sir Anthony Hooper for more details. Would you have understood that formulation of words to have itself been appropriate?
Joanne Swinson: I think, in the normal scheme of business, then that would not usually be used, but I think the difference with the Mediation Scheme is that you were dealing with, you know, a very formal process, the CEDR have guidelines about how it operates, it therefore was not something that was totally familiar to me and I could totally appreciate that there might be some boundaries about at what point, you know, it would be appropriate to speak to, you know, the former Court of Appeal judge.
I mean, I would note I did ask to meet Sir Anthony Hooper a couple of months after this particular point, and he declined to meet with me. And, in a sense, that decision that he made rather reinforced the point that I was being told about what was appropriate and where that ministerial intervention could be, you know, to what extent that was possible.
I obviously put a lot of store in Sir Anthony Hooper’s view of what was appropriate, as somebody very esteemed with a lot of experience to be able to navigate those boundaries.
Mr Blake: Thank you.
Sir, that might be an appropriate moment to take our second morning break.
Sir Wyn Williams: Certainly.
Mr Blake: Can we come back just after 12.15, so shall we say 12.17? Thank you very much.
Sir Wyn Williams: By all means, yes.
Mr Blake: Thank you very much.
(12.07 pm)
(A short break)
(12.17 pm)
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. I’m going to now turn to preparation for the Westminster Hall debate. Can we start with UKGI00002764. Thank you. This is a briefing that has been prepared, and we’ll come on to a question that you ask about this briefing.
One of the questions that is put forward there – sorry, it’s zoomed out on my screen, I don’t know if it has on yours as well?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, it has. My eyesight is not quite that good.
Sir Wyn Williams: I haven’t got it on screen at all, Mr Blake.
Mr Blake: It’s just coming, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine.
Mr Blake: Sir, the second those questions, if we scroll down, please:
“If it’s not a Horizon issue that is causing the problem, what is, 140 subpostmasters can’t be wrong?”
The proposed responses are:
“140 subpostmasters is less than 0.03% of the total users of Horizon – there are thousands of other subpostmasters who have not made a complaint.”
Reference there to:
“… investigations so far show that a large number of the problems were caused by how the subpostmasters themselves were using Horizon.”
Over the page, please. If we scroll down to the second of those questions, there’s a further question:
“Why did Post Office agree to incorporate convicted cases into the scheme if it knew it wasn’t going to mediate?”
One of the proposed answers there, bullet point 4:
“Post Office is, however, under an absolute duty to immediately disclose any information which might undermine the prosecution’s case or support the case of the defendant and Post Office has done so where appropriate. There is no doubt in my mind that it is being particularly vigilant in this regard as it carries out its investigations.”
If I could now take you to the covering email, that’s UKGI00000916. Thank you. It’s an email from your private office to Mr Callard and it says:
“Hi Richard,
“To be aware ahead of this morning’s briefing session. I put the submission, speech, [question and answer] …”
I think that’s the question and answer document we have just seen.
Joanne Swinson: Yes.
Mr Blake: “… and Hooper letter to Jo overnight and she had some comments/questions.”
If we look at the Q&A, the question that’s highlighted is one of those that I’ve just taken you to, which is “Why did the Post Office agree to incorporate convicted cases”, and it’s the reference there to disclosure duty. It says as follows:
“Jo feels like she needs a bit of clarity on this element of the legal process, another one to chat about today.”
Can you assist us, did you get that clarity?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I definitely got more clarity. I think I now have severe questions about the accuracy of that but I felt when I read this Q&A document that the phrase “There is no doubt in my mind that it is being particularly vigilant in this regard” was a strong phrase and, therefore, it stood out to me as potentially reassuring but I felt that, you know, in order to have confidence in that phrase, as I was being encouraged to say this – because the Q&A document, just so that people can understand, is, you know, in a Westminster Hall Debate that is an hour and a half long, you don’t know exactly what’s going to come up and you have to respond to all of the issues or as many as you possibly can that are raised in the debate. And so the Q&A is to help you be able to then have your answers ready to be able to, if you like, you know, pick and mix from the different questions that come up, in addition to any speaking notes.
So it was drafted with a view that I would be able to say those words and I felt that if I was potentially going to say those words, I needed to have a little bit more confidence in “particularly vigilant”. On a basic level that the Post Office Limited had this legal duty to immediately disclose information and was complying with that duty felt uncontroversial, because that’s what you would expect of any institution or public body, that they would comply with their legal duties, but “particularly vigilant”, I thought, yeah, well, that’s good, but what is this particular vigilance?
Now, I had a face-to-face briefing, as would be common with any of these debate preparations, where I would sit down with officials in advance of the debate, and that was having read the debate pack and then, rather than going through everything, we could just focus on the parts that I felt I needed to understand better, and this was one of those.
Mr Blake: Just pausing you there, who was that meeting with?
Joanne Swinson: Definitely would have included Richard Callard, I think it’s likely it would have also included one or two other officials from that team. I don’t think anybody from Post Office Limited would have been there, that wouldn’t have been my expectation, but I can’t be categorical on that part.
Mr Blake: What was said in relation to that passage that you had concerns about?
Joanne Swinson: So my memory is of being reassured. Now, I cannot tell you exactly which words were used but I know obviously that there had been the Altman Review, so I think it is likely that I was reassured by being told that a QC had examined the cases and looked at them, and there also had been – although I don’t think I was briefed about it specifically – the Deloitte review.
So my memory is of being reassured that independent reviews had been done that sounded very impressive and thorough and comprehensive. While I can’t recall exactly which words were used, I expect that those would have been the ones that had been referred to, if not by name, then description of what they had done.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Could we please now turn to UKGI00002837 and start at the bottom of the first page and into the second page.
We have an email here from your private office to Mr Callard, 16 December, and it says:
“So James [I think that’s James Arbuthnot] no longer plans to share his speech with us ahead of time as apparently it is very inflammatory and he is worried about putting in an email …”
It says:
“Him and Jo had a quick catch-up in which he outlined his main ‘asks’. I understand you’ve got a packed day tomorrow but grateful if you could ask [the Post Office] about some of those as Jo will need to respond in her speech and would be good to know how warm she should be to those asks.”
We see there, for example, number 4 is:
“He’d like Second Sight to do a briefing for [Members of Parliament] on the scheme and its progress. Jo would like to commit to asking Tony Hooper about this. What do you think?”
At number 5:
“He would like us to ask [the Post Office] to stop acting as a prosecutor on these cases.”
If we turn to page 1, we have response from Mr Callard:
“Not surprising re decision not to share the speech.”
Just looking at the distribution list, at this stage we have Belinda Crowe and Patrick Bourke, both from the Post Office, copied in to this distribution list. He says, for example, at number 4:
“[Second Sight] probably need permission from the Working Group. They have gone native but I think Jo could possibly commit to asking Tony about it at the risk of putting Tony in a difficult place. Belinda/Patrick, could we have a view and a line please?”
Number 5:
“Pass, over to POL. I know they are, or were, a prosecuting authority but if there has been a theft or fraud and it’s in the public interest they have no real choice. Otherwise what’s the deterrent? Anyone could put theft down to ‘the system’. Belinda, could you do a line please?”
Is it odd that two employees of the Post Office are in this distribution list and asked to comment within a distribution list that includes a minister’s private office?
Joanne Swinson: I think, in the first line there, it says, “[Copy] Belinda and Patrick for expediency”, so I suspect that – I mean, I do think it’s slightly unusual. I think the thinking, it looks like, was the debate is on Wednesday, the 17th, this is the Tuesday morning, therefore there is some quick turnaround required and so it’s for that reason. So, I mean, I’m less – looking at that now, I’m less, you know, appalled about that particular aspect than accepting what POL say without question, particularly in the context of what we know was being said about whether or not there was grip on the Horizon issue at the senior levels within POL.
So asking POL for their view, you know, on some issues where they might only have the information, maybe this isn’t the best way for it to be done but the really important thing should be civil servants, you know, probing and, you know, making themselves confident that they have all of the information that they need, and that they are doing so with a degree of, you know, critical assessment of analysis of what they’re being told.
Mr Blake: Does this email reflect that?
Joanne Swinson: No, I think this reflects a very cosy relationship.
Mr Blake: Thank you. The Westminster Hall Debate was on 17 December, so the day after this email. We don’t need to go into what was said at the debate but do you think you were appropriately briefed for that debate?
Joanne Swinson: At the time I felt like I had the information I needed. I would have much preferred to have been able to meet with Sir Anthony Hooper; I was very disappointed that that could not happen. I did receive a letter from him which I was able to refer to in the debate with some basic numerical information but that was a disappointment.
But knowing what I know now, I was absolutely not properly briefed for the debate. You know, at that point, Richard Callard knew from his presence on Project Sparrow that there had been moves afoot for eight months, by that point, to reduce the role of Second Sight, which had never been mentioned to me. I mean, it should have been mentioned when I returned from maternity leave, it should have been mentioned to me in the autumn when I was being briefed on this but, you know, even if it hadn’t been mentioned then, it absolutely should have been mentioned to me when I was preparing for a Westminster Hall Debate on this issue, whereas, you will see from my comments, you know, I was still, and remained, and was of the view that Second Sight’s Report on that process was incredibly important, and I referred to that in my remarks in the debate.
Mr Blake: Can we turn to UKGI00002896. By the 22 December, you have received a letter from Alan Bates, and he raises concerns in the first paragraph. He says:
“Following that debate I thought I should write to you once more to offer to meet with you to discuss the issues involved with this matter from the perspective of those it has affected, rather than those who seem to be so desperately tying to keep the truth from you.”
Can you assist us with those who advised you, what their general approach was towards letters from Alan Bates?
Joanne Swinson: Well, their general approach was to draft a response. I would often only see the letter when a draft response had been put together, and those draft responses – I mean at different times during my tenure as Minister, you know, would be either more or less sort of helpful. So in the early part of my ministerial role, there was, you know, the Second Sight Report underway and then we had the Working Group recently having been set up, so there was some positive sort of engagement happening.
And I think, by this point, it was much less positive in terms of the drafted reply and, indeed, that was delayed in being sent because the follow-up from the debate did not happen, in my view, in anything like the way that it should have done.
We had a debate on 17 December, you know, Sir Alan Bates wrote a letter on 22 December. You know, he was on it, despite the run-up to Christmas. Immediately after the debate, I had had a – as would normally be the case – a huddle, if you like, with my officials to try to agree some next steps and one of the particular issues that I had – or ideas that I had suggested was that we should extend an offer to MPs who had just been questioning me and making their points forcefully in a debate, that we should offer it to them to be able to be involved in being privy to the information in the Working Group and the mediation process, obviously for their specific constituents and obviously only if that specific constituent was happy with that situation.
And, you know, my understanding from that huddle after the debate was that this would be taken forward by Post Office Limited, in terms of them writing to each MP about the issues raised and making that offer.
I mean, I remember that I had chased it in early January, I think on 7 January –
Mr Blake: Let’s me take you to January.
Joanne Swinson: Sure.
Mr Blake: Let’s move to 7 January, UKGI00002920. The bottom email, I think, might be the one you’re referring to and it’s an email from your private office to Richard Callard:
“Jo was asking me what the timeline for getting advice from [the Post Office] on the next steps following the Horizon debate would be.”
The response is above.
“… things are in train, for example:
“[Post Office] are preparing a line-by-line rebuttal …
“We are liaising with [the Post Office] to write a letter to MPs who attended the debate …
“We are also seeking to prepare a ‘mythbusters’ type document …”
Then:
“There is a Horizon Board subcommittee at Post Office on Monday which I am going to, which will plot out the way forward … and we will update Jo next week when we see here.”
Can we please turn to UKGI00003007. We’re now on 15 January, so another week has passed. This is an email from Mark Davies, who is the Head of Communications at Post Office, emailing your private office, and he says:
“I am writing to send you a note, attached, setting out the Post Office’s detailed response to the allegations made by a number of MPs in Parliament during the Westminster Hall Debate on the Mediation Scheme in December. You may of course wish to table this in Parliament. Subject to your view we will also publish this response on our website.”
Now, I asked you earlier about an email where members of the Post Office were copied into a distribution list with your private office. Is it usual for a Head of Communications from a company like the Post Office to be emailing your private secretary and to suggest that you may wish to table something in Parliament?
Joanne Swinson: I think sometimes people from Post Office Limited would contact my office if they were sending a briefing note or information. I can see that they might do that. The Director of Communications, perhaps more unusual. But I think this is probably in the context of me knowing that a note was being created by Post Office, you know, in response to the debate. So I mean that’s not particularly concerning to me. It’s a formal email.
What was concerning to me at the time, I mean I was – I was actually pretty furious, that – I mean this is 15 January. The debate was on 17 December, right? And, you know, like most of us, okay, yeah, took Christmas Day off and had some time with the family but we’re working hard. Sir Alan Bates was working hard sending a letter on 22 December, and the fact that Post Office hadn’t, you know, pulled their finger out to get this response sorted quicker than, basically, four weeks after the debate felt to me to be, you know, ridiculous. And I was – I remember actually I think it was couple of days before this, you know, I vividly remember a kind of conversation where I was basically told that the letter still hadn’t been sent and I couldn’t really understand it.
I just want to explain also why I was so interested in the concept of MPs being able to see the details that were –
Mr Blake: If you could explain quite briefly because we are slightly out of time.
Joanne Swinson: Okay. So one of the challenges here was trying to work out where the truth lay. So I just had a Westminster Hall Debate, where MPs were forcefully putting forward points on behalf of their constituents, and receiving an entirely different story from the Post Office. And that was very difficult for me. I couldn’t go into each case and start looking through spreadsheets and try to work out – you know, I didn’t have the skillset to do that – and try to work out who was right and who was wrong but it was clear that they couldn’t both be right.
And I did think that MPs being in a position where they could at least be privy to that information would result in one of two things: either, if the Post Office were right and they had a very strong case against the subpostmasters, that that information being presented to those MPs, some of those MPs would say fair enough, actually, I see your case; or that would not be the case and so the MPs would be able to respond with even more confidence that, having objectively looked at it, that that wasn’t, you know, what Post Office was saying was wrong. So that was why I thought that was a particularly important intervention.
Mr Blake: Let’s turn to your response to Mr Bates, and that is UKGI00003111. So we’re now on 28 January.
If I could read just from the first big paragraph on the first page, it ends:
“The system processes 6 million transactions nearly every working day …”
The same lines that we’ve seen previously: 500,000 users, et cetera. At the bottom:
“With regard to your point about Post Office ‘taking control of the scheme’ and withholding information, it would seem to me that Second Sight have spent more than two years investigating these cases.”
It’s rather dismissive in tone, would you agree with that?
Joanne Swinson: It clearly has, quite a lot of information but you’re right that quite a chunk of that is information that was used in previous circumstances and it’s definitely not taking the letter as seriously as I think required, now, looking at it from what I know.
Mr Blake: Are you aware of who drafted that letter?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I don’t know exactly. I would imagine that it would have had final sign-off by Richard Callard. It may well be that one of his team produced an earlier draft.
Mr Blake: Knowing what you knew by that stage, do you consider that this was an appropriate response to have sent?
Joanne Swinson: Well, knowing at the time, you know, what I should have done, is agree to the meeting with Sir Alan Bates. I really regret that I did not do that, and I’m sorry about that.
Mr Blake: Why did you not do that, very briefly?
Joanne Swinson: I was being advised not to, from the perspective of the Working Group, you know, confidentiality and different participants and, as I say, the – Sir Anthony Hooper declining to meet with me reinforced that perspective somewhat. And just, you know, on a personal note, I’d recently come back from maternity leave. The same number of waking hours – previously, I spent almost every waking hour working, either in the ministerial brief or in the constituency, and I now had some additional responsibilities in my waking hours that needed to be fitted in, so additional meetings were not, you know – pushing back on taking more meetings than I was being advised to do was not really top of my agenda but I should have done so and I do regret that.
Mr Blake: I’m going to move on now to the termination of Second Sight. At paragraph 74 of your witness statement – I don’t think we’d need to bring it up on screen – you reference to a table being shown to you by Mr Callard by that. If we could bring onto screen POL00102169, in your statement you said you hadn’t seen a copy of that table. This is a document that would have been provided to you subsequently to your statement; is this the document that you were referring to?
Joanne Swinson: I can’t be certain but not least because it was waved in front of my face, rather than something that I had to look at overnight in a box, but I think it’s certainly quite possible that it could have been.
Mr Blake: So I think in your statement you said you had no idea of the risks involved in relation to ending the Mediation Scheme. This is a document that addresses risks but you’ve described it as something that was waved in front of your face. Can you briefly assist us on what you mean by “waved in front of [your] face”?
Joanne Swinson: That we were in a meeting, a verbal discussion meeting, and I think, as I say in my statement, Richard Callard said that he shouldn’t be showing me this but he briefly did show me a document and he was – yeah, giving the impression that he was being extra helpful by showing me, you know, additional information.
It doesn’t, having looked at it now, it doesn’t talk about the risks of removing Second Sight. That was not the way in which it was presented to me in that meeting or subsequently in the documentation that I received.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Let’s look at the draft submission and a later submission. Can we turn to UKGI00003390.
This should be a document that allows us to see some tracked changes or some comments, and I will scroll down in a second. Let’s just read. So this is a submission to you from Laura Thompson; was she a member of the ShEx team?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, she was.
Mr Blake: “Purpose: To update you on the current state of the Post Office’s Mediation Scheme dealing with complaints about the Horizon system, and seek your agreement to [Post Office’s] proposed approach in light of likely steps.”
Then there’s a recommendation that you note the current steps and agree to the Post Office’s approach.
If we scroll down we can see there there’s reference to Second Sight:
“It remains the case that there is no evidence of systemic issues with the Horizon system that could cause these discrepancies. Rather, in most cases, that have been investigated, the discrepancies appear to have been caused by human error.”
If we go over the page, please. We can see here, this is the hidden contents, so these are the comments in comment boxes on the draft, and it’s in relation to that first part that I took you to, the part about seeking your agreement. The comment there is “Are we seeking her agreement?”, and Mr Callard says:
“Probably not at this stage. Think this is more of a sighting submission, and if she objects she would no doubt say. And it’s not her scheme.”
What is your view on that?
Joanne Swinson: They should have sought my agreement. It was a very significant issue and a very significant change, and this draft document on 25 February, which was ultimately sent to me on 4 March, was markedly different from what finally was sent to me. So –
Mr Blake: Perhaps we could scroll down over to the next page. We can see some passages that don’t ultimately appear. Paragraph 9, I think you’ve highlighted in your statement where it says:
“The advantages of this approach [that is mediating all cases remaining in the scheme and releasing Second Sight from their engagement with the Post Office] are that it renders the whole of the Working Group redundant … and reduces the scope for Second Sight or the [Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance] to continue to broaden the scope of the agreements. However, it will need careful handling with both participants and the media to avoid the implementation that [the Post Office] are seeking to ‘hide the truth’ or ‘gag’ Second Sight.”
If we scroll down to the bottom of the page, there is another part that ultimately comes out, which is:
“We therefore recommend supporting [the Post Office’s] proposed approach but it might get choppy.”
If we scroll over the page, paragraph 14. It says there:
“Whether leaked or not, the Second Sight final report will give [the Post Office] a hook to determine that it’s time to meant the terms of Second Sight’s engagement and limit their involvement to reviewing the specific individual cases remaining in the scheme.”
“Post Office are considering optimal timing, including a pre-emptive strike.”
Can we please turn now to UKGI00000032. This the final version of that submission. We also have it – I don’t need to bring it up – at UKGI00014168.
Can you assist us with how the final version causes you concerns?
Joanne Swinson: So the initial version was going to ask for my agreement for the changes that were being made by POL to close the Working Group and mediate all cases. But the version that I received does not ask me to agree it. It asked me to note those changes. Then, it directs me to agree about not telling Parliament about this by written ministerial statement but that this is a finely balanced decision and, you know, that sort of screams “This is the bit you need to look at, worry about whether or not to lay a written ministerial statement”.
The reference to Second Sight in the initial version, talks about limiting their involvement, discusses about it getting choppy, that they might be considered to have been gagged, and the version that I received does mention very briefly that their engagement would be terminated but in the context of that being a kind of natural consequence of the ending of the Working Group, and that their ongoing engagement would be there, in terms of being funded to investigate individual cases and also to complete their report. There is nothing that is mentioned about them being asked to destroy documents.
And, you know, then, I mean, the comments – there is also a comment where one of the civil servants speculates whether or not we should just ask me to consider whether my commitments to Parliament have been met because it would free us from having to worry about it, which I thought was rather disrespectful to Parliament and to, therefore, the constituents of the Members of Parliament, you know. Obviously, civil servants should be taking very seriously commitments that ministers have made to Parliament. Now, in the end they did produce that information.
I mean, it’s a total changing of this submission. So, from reading this, did I know that Post Office were going to end the Working Group, mediate all cases, apart from criminal cases, that would then be referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission? Yes, I knew that. But did they tell me that they were going to sack Second Sight and make them destroy documents? No. Did they tell me that, actually, they’d been discussing limiting and reducing the role of Second Sight for the previous, you know, ten months or so? No. If they had said that, would I have responded differently? Yes. And do they think that’s why I didn’t put that information in the submission? Also, yes.
Mr Blake: Thank you. There’s one final document that I’m going to ask you about and I’ll show you a couple of emails that relate to the way that it became drafted. It’s POL00132580 and it is a letter to you from Paula Vennells dated 9 March 2015. You’ve said in your statement this was something you requested; is that correct?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, so I did agree to make the written ministerial statement that I was advised not to make and that the best way to do that would be to be making a ministerial statement including a letter from Paula Vennells, and that was a common way of making a ministerial statement to be able to bring information into the official records of Parliament.
Mr Blake: The letter says as follows:
“I am pleased to say that Post Office Limited has now completed investigations into all the individual cases put forward for consideration in the Scheme. Furthermore, again I am pleased to confirm that no evidence has been found through these investigations of any system wide issues with Horizon.
“As a result, Post Office has now decided to put forward for mediation all cases remaining in the Scheme except those that have been subject to a previous Court ruling … This will accelerate the conclusion of the Scheme in the interests of the applicants and ensure that we fulfil the commitments we made to them at the outset.”
It says:
“The Post Office will also continue to seek to make an independent review by forensic accountants Second Sight available to applicants where that has not already been provided.”
Over the page, please. This one of the key paragraphs that I’m going to briefly be asking you about:
“For those applicants who have been subject of court rulings, two important points need to be drawn out. Firstly, we will continue to consider each of these cases carefully, on a case-by-case basis, even though mediation cannot overturn a court’s ruling. Secondly, as prosecutor Post Office has a continuing duty after a prosecution has concluded to disclose immediately any information that subsequently comes to light which might undermine its prosecution case or support the case of the defendant. Having now completed its reinvestigation of each of the cases, Post Office has found no reason to conclude that any original prosecution was unsafe. Applicants remain able to pursue the normal legal avenues open to them to appeal court rulings with any further material disclosed to them, including that produced through the Scheme.”
If we scroll down towards the end, it says:
“The approach set out above will help bring the mediation process to a conclusion earlier than envisaged …
“One of the consequences of our presumption in favour of mediating in as many cases as possible is that it brings to an end the role of the Working Group …”
I’d just like to take you through the process by which that was drafted. If we look at POL00386985, we can see there that Mr Davies, the Communications and Corporate Affairs Director at the Post Office, circulates internally a draft.
We then see, at POL00223650, an amendment to the draft. Thank you. If we scroll down, we can see, from Mr Williams, he makes two points:
“The fourth paragraph, final sentence [change it] to:
“‘The Post Office will also continue to seek to make an independent review available [et cetera]’ (we may not be able to actually deliver the independent review once [Second Sight] are terminated; and
“Fifth paragraph, final sentence: ‘Having now completed its reinvestigation of each of the cases, Post Office has found no reason to conclude that any original prosecution was unsafe’ (we should avoid talking about appeals which have not yet been made).”
We can actually see in tracked changes that change. Can we please turn to POL00223651. This is the amended draft and, if we turn to the second page, please, the end of the first paragraph, we can see that tracked change, so it originally said:
“However, Post Office has not seen any evidence that it believes would lead to a successful appeal.”
That is now amended to:
“Having now completed its reinvestigation of each of the cases, Post Office has found no reason to conclude that any original prosecution was unsafe.”
We saw that form of words in the letter that was tabled before Parliament.
Can you assist us with what your understanding of that was at the time?
Joanne Swinson: So, having received this letter, which, without having seen the tracked changes, is a very specific, confident, robust letter that says, you know, “We’ve investigated, we’ve looked at this, we’ve got this duty to disclose immediately, any information that comes to light would be disclosed, and, of course, there’s all these avenues for appeal, and, you know, there’s no reason to conclude that any original prosecution was unsafe”.
That, to me, felt very reassuring and I just want to be clear, as well, that this was not only a set of assurances that were given to me in writing; these were assurances that Paula Vennells delivered to me in person, you know, across the table, looking me in the eye and telling me that there was no problem, that they had investigated, that they had not found anything that would cause concern, which I cannot square with that email I have now seen that she sent in October 2013, that says that she is – you know, her concern is about an unsafe witness and their obligations of disclosure.
So she knew about the Clarke Advice and the lack of credibility of the key witness that they had relied on for so many prosecutions. I mean, I consider that she did not tell me that at the time in the summer and autumn of 2013 to be massively problematic, nor at any point in the subsequent 18 months in any of our catch-ups in any of the submissions that I received, and that she would sit and look me in the eye and give me those assurances and then put that in writing, you know, it just beggars belief because she knew that there were problems with convictions, and the safety thereof because she had been told that in the Clarke memo.
And I got this letter and I did take it at face value, I believed the assurances and, you know, in that first briefing note where I met with Alice Perkins and Paula Vennells in 2012, one of the bullet points – which I remember because it was unusual – was that Paula Vennells is also an ordained vicar, right? And so she was sitting there, yes, as a Chief Exec of a national organisation, national company, but she was also sitting there with the moral authority of somebody who was a minister of the cloth, right, not of some kind of slick Chief Executive who seemed to care only about profit. I believed her. I believed her.
Mr Blake: I did say that was the final document but just one more document, it’s UKGI00004006.
We can deal with this quite quickly, if we start on page 3, we see, on page 3, on 20 March 2015 now, there is a request from you in respect of you had been told, I think, that it wasn’t appropriate to receive a copy of Second Sight’s report. I think, if we turn to page 2, we can see that you had challenged that and –
Joanne Swinson: Multiple times.
Mr Blake: – at the bottom of that page, that email from Laura Thompson, she says:
“Our advice remains that Government should not receive a copy of the report. The revised drafting emphasises two points:
“[It’ll] be sent to the Post Office …
“… does not relate to the operation of the Horizon system … but rather, relates to issues which will be operational matters for Post Office.”
Now, we started today on distinguishing between operational matters and what were not operational matters. Do you think that the Second Sight Report that isn’t being provided to you here, do you think that’s an operational matter or something else?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I mean, I think – it’s hard to know, having not received it, obviously, but I think clearly this is an issue where there was significant concern in Parliament and, more broadly, in the public, many subpostmasters and the Select Committee in Parliament has recommended that Government receive a copy.
I remember an earlier piece of correspondence, I think to Sir Alan Bates, where I was asked to sign off that the Government cannot compel its publication nor would we do so, and I remember challenging that and saying, “Well, hang on, if we could compel it, I think I would compel it to be published. Can we compel it?”
And I was told no, we can’t. And then they said, because of the confidentiality which, you know, I accepted, but the confidentiality argument falls apart with the provision of it to Government, as the shareholder. So I felt like that was an important report that should be received by Government.
Mr Blake: Thank you. Finally, it might be suggested that politicians are coming to this Inquiry, finding it very easy to blame the Post Office, very easy to blame civil servants but don’t look enough at their own roles. What do you think you did to contribute to the scandal?
Joanne Swinson: There’s various things that I wish I had done differently, as I set out in my witness statement. I should have met with Sir Alan Bates. I wished I’d asked to meet with Second Sight directly. I wish, on a couple of occasions, I had pushed more and probed more, and one of those was when I was told that the Post Office was changing their Prosecution Policy, and I wasn’t told that in a formal briefing, it was off the cuff, and I think my response at the time was kind of relief and “About time!” but, actually, I wish I’d asked more questions at that point because I suspect that there were reasons for that.
And, ultimately, if Post Office, had been frank about that advice that they’d received, which I’m sure must be why they changed their Prosecution Policy, about the unsafe witness, I mean, years of anguish could have been saved for subpostmasters. Justice could have been years earlier, if that Clarke memo had been properly acted upon at the time. And I didn’t know about it, and I wish I had, and I am just really sorry that – I asked lots of questions and it wasn’t enough.
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. It’s 1.00, there are unlikely to be many significant questions from anybody. I’m just looking around the room to see if there – yes.
There is one question from Paula Vennells’ Legal Team and also from Mr Jacobs. I anticipate it will be around ten minutes in total.
It’s a matter for you, sir, whether we –
Sir Wyn Williams: I think if it is ten minutes, obviously it’s sensible to complete it, subject to the transcriber being happy to do that and then subject to having reasonable break for lunch.
Mr Blake: Yes. Sir, looking around the room, I think it may actually be sensible if we take lunch. Might it be possible perhaps to come back at 1.50?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Before we take lunch, Ms Swinson, there are references in your witness statement to you being aware that the Criminal Cases Review Commission became involved but, unless I’ve missed it, I can’t actually discern an approximate time when you first knew that. Can you help me with that?
Joanne Swinson: Of course, Sir Wyn. My understanding of the CCRC’s involvement was around the point where I was being told that they were going to close the Working Group and that POL had decided to do that and –
Sir Wyn Williams: But this is 2015, basically?
Joanne Swinson: Yes. I now know there was separate CCRC correspondence but I don’t recall knowing that at the time and I don’t – haven’t seen anything to suggest that I was briefed on that. It did seem to me, in the discussions about the Working Group, understandable that, if a criminal conviction has been reached and that that needs to be overturned, that that needs to go through a proper judicial process, which is why the CCRC involvement to me seemed reasonable, as a mechanism to deliver that element of the redress that was being sought by people who felt that they had been wronged.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine. Thank you.
So I have taken up a minute, Mr Blake. What time shall we resume?
Mr Blake: If we could come back at 1.50 because we do finish early today.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine, yeah. That’s fine.
(1.03 pm)
(The Short Adjournment)
(1.50 pm)
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. Ms Leek is going to ask the first question.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes. Pause.
Questioned by Ms Leek
Ms Leek: Good afternoon, Ms Swinson. Just one issue, I represent Paula Vennells.
You said this morning that Ms Vennells, and I quote, “knew about the Clarke Advices”. Just one point arising from that: are you aware that there is no evidence to suggest that Ms Vennells was ever shown either of the Simon Clarke Advices by Susan Crichton or any other Post Office lawyer before she left the Post Office?
Joanne Swinson: In preparing for the Inquiry, I have been shown an email from October 2013 where Paula Vennells emails Alice Perkins, I think before going on leave and –
Ms Leek: We have seen –
Joanne Swinson: I don’t have –
Ms Leek: Yes.
Joanne Swinson: – the specific wording, so I may not remember precisely, but it basically says along the lines of “My concern about Horizon or Sparrow is our obligations of disclosure regarding an unsafe witness”, which to me says that she knows that there was an unsafe witness and therefore is referring to the Clarke Advice. Now if she –
Ms Leek: Let me stop you there, is it right to say then that the extent of your knowledge about what Paul Vennells was told is based on that particular email?
Joanne Swinson: She certainly didn’t tell me about it and I wish she had and she should have done.
Ms Leek: Yes, but I’m –
Joanne Swinson: Yes, it’s that email.
Ms Leek: – trying to explore with you what you knew about what she had been told about the Simon Clarke Advices and I want to establish: is that based solely on that email?
Joanne Swinson: From that email –
Ms Leek: Yes?
Joanne Swinson: – to me it’s clear she knew of at least the existence of the Clarke Advice and I would have thought that any Chief Executive being given information of that level would have asked to then see the document on which that came from.
Ms Leek: Are you aware she was –
Joanne Swinson: But I don’t know if she did or didn’t.
Ms Leek: Right. So you don’t know that she was not given a copy of the Simon Clarke Advices. The entirety of your knowledge is based on that email between Paula Vennells and Alice Perkins?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t know if she asked for the Clarke Advice. I know that she must have known about it’s existence because where else would she have got that information about that unsafe witness?
Ms Leek: I just want to establish – it’s not a difficult question – the extent of your knowledge is based on the email you’re referring to?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, and I think that email speaks for itself.
Ms Leek: Right, thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right, thank you.
Mr Blake: Mr Jacobs.
Questioned by Mr Jacobs
Mr Jacobs: Good afternoon. I represent a large number of subpostmasters and mistresses who were ill treated by the Post Office in this scandal.
At paragraph 131 of your witness statement you say you felt, instead of being provided with the important information on Post Office’s motivations and plans in a timely way – there’s no need to turn it’s up:
“… I was being kept at arm’s length and was being managed.”
Does that sum up your general experience in the way that you were briefed on the Horizon issue, being kept at arm’s length and managed?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I think that is what was happening, that’s what they were attempting to do. I did ask and probe on lots of different elements of this, but the advice was, as you will see from the documents, very clear always to encourage me that this was an operational matter and then reassurance was provided in various ways.
Mr Jacobs: Thank you, and you’ve given two examples of cases where you weren’t properly informed. You say that you weren’t told that Second Sight were to be sacked, bound by confidentiality and records destroyed, and you would have objected strongly if you’d known. You also talk about you weren’t told that the Chief Executive was considered to be unfit to do the job.
In relation to that last point, you’ve described the manoeuvrings of the Shareholder Executive this morning as Orwellian; is that right?
Joanne Swinson: I think in the specific case that I used that language, it was about them knowing that the Post Office was changing its position on how it engaged with the Mediation Scheme and then telling me that other people were trying to reinterpret the terms of reference. And I think another example would be there was a Select Committee on 3 February, you know, I asked about the outcome of that Select Committee. You know, what happened, could I be, you know, given information about that and I was basically told there was nothing unexpected.
I think that would be another example when Second Sight actually said they were concerned about unsafe prosecutions, where I should have been given information having asked for a readout of the Select Committee.
Mr Jacobs: That’s very helpful, thank you.
In your evidence, you’ve confirmed, I think, that Richard Callard was one of the people who kept you out of the loop and you have given examples and we have heard him writing “I want to get her in the right place on Sparrow”. I don’t want to ask you about him.
Those clients that we have are interested to which of the senior individuals within the Shareholder Executive you blame, in addition to Mr Callard, for the state of affairs that led to you being kept at arm’s length and managed in this way, and I’m going to give you some names: Will Gibson, Mike Whitehead, Peter Batten, Laura Thompson and Tim McInnes.
I’ve given you those names because those are the names that feature in the documents we’ve been referred to in your evidence. There may be some other individuals. Do you think those individuals are to blame and to what extent?
Joanne Swinson: So I have been specific in my criticism of Mr Callard and part of the reason for that, rather than generally naming lots of civil servants, is that, from the documents I’ve seen, I can now know that he was on that Sparrow Subcommittee and so I have good reason to believe he knew things that he wasn’t telling me. What I don’t know about those other officials is how much of their information was therefore reliant on what Richard Callard was telling them or, indeed, questions they were asking of Post Office Limited, which is why would be reluctant to go into a more, you know, detailed kind of naming. But because of that specific role on the Board, you know, I have information that Richard Callard knew about things and I would just reiterate what I said earlier on, that my general experience of dealing with civil servants is that they were public spirited, they were diligent in doing their jobs. You know, I think this seems to me to have been exceptional.
That’s one of the reasons why I find it so shocking. This is an issue that affected so many people and the only way ministerial oversight could operate properly on that is with, you know, frank and full advice, and that’s why I’m angry that that was not provided because it had so many impacts on real lives.
Mr Jacobs: I think you’ve said at the conclusion of your evidence in your statement – no need to turn it up – at paragraphs 146 to 148, that there are number of recommendations that you make. One of the things that you say is that the solution to the way arm’s-length, government-owned bodies are viewed and looked at and checked by the Government might be a cultural solution.
My final question for you is, from your experiences, were there any cultural problems within the Shareholder Executive that you want to tell the Inquiry about today?
Joanne Swinson: To be clear, I don’t think a cultural solution is sufficient but I also am supportive of the suggestions that have come out, for example, about the Duty of Candour. But I would also say that any official duty like that being put in will also not be sufficient without the right culture in place. And I do think there was a different culture in ShEx that was not of the usual Civil Service culture, which, as I say, I found was generally a very helpful one that was focused on the public good, and I think, while there is a need obviously, to have, you know, relevant commercial experience when you’re dealing with companies, actually, that mindset of public service is an incredibly important part of what needs to be present in all civil servants, even when dealing on commercial matters, and I think that’s the culture – cultural element that is important to instil.
Mr Jacobs: Thank you. I don’t have any more questions for you.
Joanne Swinson: Thank you.
Questioned by Sir Wyn Williams
Sir Wyn Williams: Ms Swinson, I just have a hypothetical for you.
Let’s assume we are back in 2014 and the documents which related to the appraisal of Paula Vennells’ ability to carry on as Chief Executive had, in fact, been drawn to your attention, all right, and let us assume that you had been persuaded of the validity of some of those criticisms.
Would it actually have been your decision as to whether she would have been invited to leave the organisation or, if not, how would the decision have been made?
Joanne Swinson: I certainly don’t think it would have solely rested with me –
Sir Wyn Williams: Right.
Joanne Swinson: – because I think Vince Cable would have rightly been involved in that decision. I do not know if it would have been – I mean, I – something like that would not have been on, you know, the whim of the Secretary of State, so I imagine that would have been in discussion with the Board. But, had those concerns been drawn to my attention when I returned from maternity leave, then that would have been a conversation with Vince, it would have presumably been conversations with other – you know, with the officials from ShEx and then potentially with the rest of the Post Office Board.
It would have totally changed the view on whether it made sense, you know, appoint somebody else in terms of, you know, a strong CFO. There would have been a lot of things that were different and, of course, you know, assurances given by Paula Vennells about Horizon, in that context, would have been viewed very differently.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I’m not actually seeking to enquire into Ms Vennells herself; I was really concerned about the process. So if I summarised it in this way: that it would have come to you in the first instance but, ultimately, it would also have gone to the Secretary of State, there would have been wide consultation and would I be right in then adding that, ultimately, it would have been a decision of the Secretary of State?
Joanne Swinson: That’s my understanding.
Sir Wyn Williams: Fine. Yes, that’s fine. Thanks very much.
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Anything else, Mr Blake?
Mr Blake: We do have some keep questions from Ms Patrick and Ms Watt.
Sir Wyn Williams: Ah, sorry. Sorry to have jumped in. I assumed that was it. I apologise.
Ms Patrick: If Ms Watt wants to go first that’s fine.
Oh, there we go.
Questioned by Ms Patrick
Ms Patrick: Ms Swinson, my name is Angela Patrick. I also act for a number of subpostmasters. You can see Mrs Hamilton to my left and Mr Brentnall to my right. I apologise, I got one of my clients names wrong there!
Ms Swinson, I apologise for the break there with the technical difficulty. I only want to look at one document and it’s the document Mr Blake spoke to you about this morning, the Fujitsu document, where you said you prompted yourself to reframe your decision and your reaction in more Parliamentary language.
I don’t think we need to bring it up but I’ll give the reference so we can have it in case we need to look at it, it’s FUJ00174179, and we don’t really need to look at it, I don’t think.
You said and you’ve admitted that you wished you’d spoken to Second Sight, you wished you’d spoken to Mr Bates. Just to be absolutely clear, you didn’t speak to Second Sight before the ministerial statement on 2 July 2013?
Joanne Swinson: No, I did not.
Ms Patrick: You said you couldn’t recall Lesley Sewell being in the room but there were many officials. I want to ask you about a few other names to see if it might jog your memory: Rodric Williams?
Joanne Swinson: I’m not sure.
Ms Patrick: Susan Crichton?
Joanne Swinson: I’m afraid I don’t know.
Ms Patrick: You’ve given us your reaction about finding out about information that was communicated in the Clarke Advice but I just want to ask, if anyone in that room or elsewhere in Post Office, knew about bugs, the unsafe witness issue or that Fujitsu had remote access to Post Office branches, was any of that information, that ought to have been, briefed up to you before you took to your feet on 9 July?
Joanne Swinson: Just to be clear, you said bugs, the remote access issue and you said one other thing?
Ms Patrick: The unsafe witness issue.
Joanne Swinson: The unsafe witness issue. Certainly not on the unsafe witness issue and certainly not on remote access.
Ms Patrick: No, I think we’re at cross purposes. I’m not saying was it briefed up to you.
Joanne Swinson: Oh, right.
Ms Patrick: If they knew, should it have been briefed up to you?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, I believe so. The remote access issue would have been quite a technical element but, given how important it was, then, yes, I think the significance of that should have been. The issue of bugs, I would – just to be clear, within the Second Sight Report, obviously, in July 2013, it was recognised that there were some anomalies and indeed in my statement to the House I mentioned that no IT system is entirely bug free but what’s important is that if something like that is identified, that it is rectified, and my understanding was that that had been what had had happened. Obviously that was my understanding, based on what I’d been told, but that turned out not to be the case.
Ms Patrick: Indeed, in your recollection of that group that was huddled in your room, you’re being briefed in a hurry for the debate and the conduct of the Post Office may have been criticised by MPs, was it a briefing, in your recollection, where both the Post Office and ShEx officials were present?
Joanne Swinson: In my recollection is not that clear but I think it’s entirely possible and, having seen the email, perhaps there was somebody from POL there. As I say, given the urgency of timing, if there was going to be any points that we needed POL to confirm or, you know, explain, that’s possible. But I’m sorry, I can’t be more categorical because it was a long time ago and a lot of people in a room.
Ms Patrick: In a circumstance where you’ve got an arm’s-length body that might be subject to criticism by MPs, is there any prospect that that would be a cause for concern for you, that you’re being briefed by both the body that might be criticised and the individual officials?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, in order for me to be able to answer the questions from MPs, I would need to understand what POL’s response would be and, obviously, I can only really get that from POL directly. Obviously, that could come via officials and, in the normal mode of written submissions, that’s how I would expect it to work. But in a very time-limited scenario where a debate is happening. If I’ve got a question, I’d say “Well, hang on, what’s happened here? What’s the position on this particular area?” My officials might not know and so, yes, I wouldn’t find it very unusual in that scenario to necessarily have somebody from POL there.
Ms Patrick: Who would you rely on to give you an independent view in those kinds of circumstances where an arm’s-length body might be criticised in a debate?
Joanne Swinson: Well, I mean, obviously the officials, you would hope, would have some ability to, you know, have a probing and indeed, if I was, you know, in a conversation with somebody from POL, I was doing that myself, right? I wasn’t just saying “Oh, right you say that”. I would then potentially be able to ask a follow-up question to them to get the understanding. I think in the case of POL – you know, I had a number of arm’s-length bodies that I was engaging with as a minister.
In the case of POL, I suppose I felt we almost had a better opportunity to make sure we got really good information because there was a NED on the Board who was actually a civil servant, so we should have more information.
Ms Patrick: Can I stop you there a minute. You would have asked questions but, on this occasion, you hadn’t read the Second Sight Report, had you?
Joanne Swinson: But I cannot categorically say that I had read it in full. I may have scanned it at that point. I’d had a debate pack – well, three debate packs in my box the previous evening and I’d been reading as much as I could for all of those debates.
Ms Patrick: Were you relying on the officials in those circumstances to ensure that you were getting an independent view?
Joanne Swinson: Yes, the officials would be providing policy advice and there would be a very strong view that what I was being told by officials was factually accurate and –
Ms Patrick: If we can look at that message back to the context there, rightly or wrongly, looking at that conversation within Fujitsu that you wouldn’t have seen, would you expect a ministerial briefing being given in the context where an arm’s-length body was possibly going to be criticised in Parliament to be fed back to a third-party contractor who themselves might be subject to criticism?
Joanne Swinson: I mean, I can see that – it probably wouldn’t have been my expectation at the time. The content of the conversation that I would have had with officials, which I would have expected was a kind of a private conversation to understand the issues – so I wouldn’t necessarily have expected that to be reported back to somebody else.
Ms Patrick: Just to be absolutely clear, were you told that Fujitsu were going to be briefed on your briefing?
Joanne Swinson: No, no.
Ms Patrick: Okay. Thank you very much, Ms Swinson. I have no other questions for you.
Joanne Swinson: Thank you.
Questioned by Ms Watt
Ms Watt: Good afternoon, Ms Swinson. I appear for the National Federation of SubPostmasters.
Just getting into each other’s view. Thank you.
Throughout your witness statement, you referenced the briefings that you got and the meetings that you had with George Thomson, who at the material time of Horizon, was the General Secretary of the NFSP and the Inquiry has heard what he has to say about it all.
We also saw a document this morning which said both the NFSP and the Communication Workers Union had expressed confidence in Horizon, so doubtless you took reassurance from these positions.
You’re nodding. I think –
Joanne Swinson: Yes, sorry. I did and my experience of dealing with both the NFSP and the CWU during my time as minister was that neither organisation was shy about being critical where they didn’t agree with some things so, yes, I did take some reassurance from the fact that they were positive about Horizon.
Ms Watt: So I just want to ask you a couple of questions, then, around the Crown post offices and the Post Office’s own employees. So thinking about this, last month the Inquiry heard evidence from Tony Kearns of the CWU that there were approximately 9,000 Post Office employees working at Crown post offices and using Horizon, through that relevant period, and likely they would have been union members, so roughly the same as the membership of the NFSP at the time.
He didn’t have figures for Crown Office employee prosecutions, except that there was some increase and thought that some employees probably simply left employment when faced with shortfalls. So perhaps a bit of a different picture, as compared to the subpostmasters.
So you sort of anticipated some of what I’m going to ask. Can you say what sort of engagement you had with the CWU and if they ever raised Horizon with you?
Joanne Swinson: I met with CWU regularly but not as frequently as with the NFSP. I would – maybe couple of times a year, but I can’t be certain without access to those diary records, and I don’t recall Horizon being raised by CWU, but it’s hard to be absolutely categorical. But most of the discussions with CWU focused around some of the transformation in the Crown estate and the network transformation plans there and some of their concerns about that.
Ms Watt: So thinking about what you were coming to know and had, in fact, you know, been put before you in relation to the issues about Horizon, although focused on subpostmasters, did you ever ask them about the Crown Office employees and were you not concerned about Horizon and how it might be affecting, effectively, civil servants, the state’s own employees?
Joanne Swinson: I don’t think I proactively asked the CWU about it. I do remember one conversation with George Thomson from NFSP but I can’t tell you exactly when that was. And it’s interesting in noting the figures that you set out because, in terms of – you’re right it’s probably a similar number but, actually, at the time, that wasn’t the way that I conceived of it, because I probably would have considered the NFSP that the vast majority of branches and then there was a much smaller number of Crown Offices, though obviously larger branches.
So they weren’t raising it, and it wasn’t something which I proactively raised with them, to my memory.
Ms Watt: Thanks very much.
Mr Blake: Thank you, sir. Those are all our questions. Our plan is to all stay in the room while there is a change of witness.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right, that’s fine.
So thank you very much, Ms Swinson, for making a detailed witness statement and for answering a good many questions today, this morning and into this afternoon. I’m very grateful to you.
The Witness: Thank you very much and for all of your work. Thank you.
(Pause)
Mr Stevens: Good afternoon, sir. Can you hear and see us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can. Thank you very much.
Mr Stevens: Thank you, sir. We’re about to hear from Dame Moya Greene.
Dame Greene
DAME MOYA MARGUERITE GREENE (sworn).
Questioned by Mr Stevens
Mr Stevens: Please could you state your full name?
Dame Greene: Moya Marguerite Greene.
Mr Stevens: Thank you for attending the Inquiry today give evidence and also thank you for the detailed witness statement that you have provided. I want to go to that first, it should be in front of you. For the purpose of the record, it’s WITN10310100.
Now, before I ask you to look at your signature, there’s two minor clarification points to make. Could we please have page 21, paragraph 59 of the statement on screen. It’s the last sentence, you say:
“The formal separation agreement was signed on 1 April 2012.”
I understand you wish to clarify that to the fact that the formal separation agreement was signed in January 2012 and formal separation itself took place on 1 April 2012 with further services between the companies ceasing thereafter.
Dame Greene: That’s correct.
Mr Stevens: On the same theme, can we turn to page 40, please. Paragraph 119, you say:
“A few months later on 3 April 2012, two days after the signing of the formal Separation Agreement …”
I understand that should read, “two days after formal separation”?
Dame Greene: That’s correct.
Mr Stevens: Thank you. That document can come down for the time being. Dame Moya, can I ask you please to turn to page 54 of your statement; do you see a signature?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Is that your signature?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Are the facts in that witness statement true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: That stands as your evidence to the Inquiry. It will be published on the Inquiry’s website shortly. I am going to ask you some questions about it. I’m not going to ask you questions on everything but just a few of the key points.
I’ll start with your background. You spent the first part your career in the Canadian Civil Service, rising to work in the Privy Council Office?
Dame Greene: That is correct.
Mr Stevens: You then served as Assistant Deputy Minister at Transport Canada between 1991 and 1996?
Dame Greene: That is correct.
Mr Stevens: Following that, you held various roles in the private sector, including being President and CEO of Canada Post Corporation between 2005 and 2010?
Dame Greene: That is correct.
Mr Stevens: In 2010, you became Chief Executive of Royal Mail?
Dame Greene: Correct.
Mr Stevens: That’s what I’m going to focus my questions on now. First, a few very broad questions on your responsibility as a CEO. Would you accept that ultimate responsibility for the operation of Royal Mail, the Group, rested with you?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Would you agree that identifying, analysing and managing risk is an important part of the executive running of a company?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: In fact, it goes to the heart of the company executive, would you agree with that?
Dame Greene: (The witness nodded) Yes.
Mr Stevens: When running a group of companies, considering risk also means considering risk to the subsidiaries?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Can we please bring up your statement, page 10, paragraph 28. Thank you. Here we see from the title, talking about subsidiaries and group companies, you say:
“The risks associated with a subsidiary entity such as [Post Office], whether these were legal, IT or finance related, would be reported to …”
It says ARC, that’s Audit and Risk Committee:
“… and updates provided to the Royal Mail Boards where significant risks were identified or were sufficiently material to impact the financials of the Group.”
You’re distinguishing there significant risks and risks that were sufficiently material to impact the financials of the group. What types of significant risks there did you have in mind? Can you give any examples?
Dame Greene: Yes. We had a very big pension deficit, we had a very large pension programme and the deficit ranged between £4 billion and £12 billion, depending upon assumptions and time, so that was a very significant risk. We had cash risks in the Royal Mail. There were times when, you know, there were genuine worries that we just did not have enough cash for the operation. We had major risks in the operation. Having had a very good modernisation plan, it was difficult to implement it. That was a very big risk for the Royal Mail Group.
You know, those were sort of three major risks. We had a regulatory framework that was archaic and out of date and we needed a new approach entirely. That was another major risk for Royal Mail going forward, given a very different competitive environment. So those would be four examples.
Mr Stevens: We heard from some witnesses from UKGI and the Shareholder Executive last week and we saw risk registers that they used and, on those risk registers, they included some reputational risks. Would reputational risks be something that a subsidiary should report to its parent company?
Dame Greene: Yes. The only hesitation I have is that, at that time, 2010 to 2012, we were just actual starting to bear down on the establishment of risk management frameworks but, yes, generally I would agree, if there is a very big reputational risk, it should be reported.
Mr Stevens: What about the risk that a subsidiary has pursued a prosecution that has potentially resulted in an unsafe conviction?
Dame Greene: I think it depends on the scale, if that would be considered a material risk.
Mr Stevens: Pausing there, when you say “scale”, is that referring to numbers or type of conviction?
Dame Greene: Numbers, type of conviction, what steps the company is taking to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. It just depends. It’s only a reputational risk if, you know, if it bears on how people view the organisation going forward.
Mr Stevens: So when we had, as I say, the significant risk and the sufficiently material risk to impact the Board’s financials, I think what you’re saying is, when you are referred to significant risk, it still has to be material to the group itself, to be reported up from the subsidiary?
Dame Greene: I wouldn’t be categoric about that, Mr Stevens. As I said, we were just getting started on the establishment of risk registers and the processes that you put in place – bottom-up, top-down – to try to identify where the risks were, sifting through to understand what was the scale of the risk. But by and large, an Audit and Risk Committee would focus on the big risks and these would be the material risks.
Mr Stevens: As part of forming the risk register, as you say, do you recollect, did you ever see, on the risk register for Royal Mail or any of its subsidiaries, risks relating to the prosecution of subpostmasters?
Dame Greene: No, I don’t recall seeing that.
Mr Stevens: I want to now look at some of the issues relating to IT without were funnelled through, or potentially funnelled through, the ARC. Please could we start with POL00030217. So this is an Ernst & Young document, it’s a management letter for the year ending 27 March 2011.
Do you recall seeing this document whilst in post at Royal Mail?
Dame Greene: No. It has been provided to the – from the Inquiry to me.
Mr Stevens: When the Inquiry provided it to you, did you read it?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Broadly, would you have expected to be made aware of a letter such as this in your position as Chief Executive of Royal Mail?
Dame Greene: Not in detail. The relationship with our external auditors was really primarily with our Chief Financial Officer, Matthew Lester. He and I had a very close working relationship, so any big issues that our outside auditors, E&Y, would have said, he would have told me about but I wouldn’t expect to be told in detail about the management letter for the Post Office.
Mr Stevens: Can we look, please, at page 3. It’s the “Executive summary”, and it says:
“The main area we would encourage management focus on in the current year is improving the IT governance and controlled environment.
“Within the IT environment our audit work identified weaknesses mainly relating to the control environment operated by [Post Office’s] third party IT suppliers. Our key recommendations can be summarised into the following four areas:
“Improve governance of outsourcing application management
“Improve segregation of duties within of the manage change process
“Strengthen the change management process
“Strengthen the review of privileged access.
“We also encourage management to continue to enhance the Legal and Compliance review framework to manage risks in relation to regulatory compliance associated with financial services activities.”
Now, in a moment, we’re going to look at some ARC meetings and I’ll ask you about how this was discussed. Before I move on to that, though, I want to ask about one specific part of the matters that were identified. Could we turn to page 23, please. This is just to orientate ourselves. We can see the title is “Current Year Recommendations – IT Specific”, and it gives a series of recommendations, which I don’t need to take you through. Could we please go to page 31.
In the table at the bottom, the bottom line, we see it talking about review of privileged access to IT functions; do you see that?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: If we go over the page, it starts with POLSAP, which is a back-end system that I’m not going to ask you about but, if we go forward, please, HNG-X, which we now know as Horizon Online. HNG-X, at the time, presumably would have been a phrase of which you were aware?
Dame Greene: Actually, I don’t recall it and it has only been raised at Royal Mail Board minutes that you provided a couple of times but I, of course, now know what HNG-X means: Horizon Online.
Mr Stevens: Presumably you were aware at the time that Post Office was rolling out a new front-end accounting software system?
Dame Greene: Yes, generally.
Mr Stevens: So this risk or this point says:
“There are inappropriate system privileges assigned to the APPSUP role and SYSTEM_MANAGER role at the Oracle database level on the branch database server (BDB) supporting HNG-X.”
It goes on to describe some more of what it describes as “inappropriate privileged access”.
We’ve heard a lot about APPSUP at the Inquiry and generally about remote access. At this point in time, 2011/2012, that period, were you made aware in any detail of Fujitsu’s ability remotely to access branch accounts in the Horizon IT System?
Dame Greene: No, I was not. However, in the minutes of the Audit and Risk Committee, it was raised, and it was raised, I think, at the initiative of our Chairman, Donald Brydon, but it was raised in a way that was put in the context of Fujitsu not really being prepared for the audit in the previous year. And a lot of work had to be done by our outside auditor to make up for that. So it was raised in a slightly different context and it certainly was not emphasised.
Mr Stevens: With hindsight, looking back now, is it the type of detail that you would have expected to be raised at the ARC committee at Group level?
Dame Greene: That’s hard to say. We had so many very big technology risks. As I mention in my statement, the Royal Mail technology estate was archaic, complex. We could not really go forward with the modernisation programme as planned without the ability to improve it. So I am not sure, Mr Stevens, that this access issue that came up in the context – in a much larger context of the audit work that had been done for the ‘10/’11 year would have received that kind of emphasis. The technology estate in the Royal Mail Group needed to be completely revamped. So I don’t know how much emphasis this particular, and what we see now, very important point, would have been given.
Mr Stevens: Can we look, please, at RMG00000083.
So this is Royal Mail Group paper – we see “Date of ARC” – so it’s for the Audit and Risk Committee on the 8 December 2011. The author and sponsor is Chris Day, the Chief Financial Officer of Post Office. Contributors include Lesley Sewell and Rod Ismay. It’s title is “Update on Post Office Limited, Horizon controls and relationship with Fujitsu”.
If we could turn the page, please, in fact, sorry, to page 3., it says, “IT controls and SAS70 assurance”. Earlier, when you were referring to audit and a discussion at the ARC, were you referring to that SAS70 assurance?
Dame Greene: That is correct.
Mr Stevens: It also says this, in the middle:
“A number of IT control issues were identified during the 2010/11 year-end audit, which were largely centred on Fujitsu. Overall [Ernst & Young] that the control systems were reliable, but they made certain recommendations in the management letter following the audit for improvements which have been implemented. The IT control issues identified during the audit did not relate to the integrity of accounting data in the system. Rather, [Ernst & Young] made recommendations about the documentation and authorisation of changes to systems and about opportunities for streamlined assurance.”
If we go to page 6, please – we don’t need to cover the whole of the paper – at the bottom of the page, please. It talks about the annual audit by Ernst & Young. It says:
“However, after additional control testing, [Ernst & Young] confirmed that they were able to plates reliance on the existing systems controls. Nevertheless, they suggested certain improvements which could be made, mainly relating to access.”
Do you have any recollection of reading this paper at the time?
Dame Greene: I don’t have any recollection of reading it and – but what I would say is that it’s a very reassuring paper and so, in previous minutes – and again I don’t have any specific recollection of it – the minutes report that our outside auditor was annoyed that they had to do a lot of extra work on their own initiative because Fujitsu did not seem to be ready to do the kind of work that was expected in a year-end audit and, as a result e&Y did the work. They tested the systems and they tested the control environment. They made a lot of recommendations for improvement but they were able to reassure the Board and the Audit and Risk Committee that they were satisfied that there was integrity in the data that was being used for the purposes of financial reporting.
So it’s in a context where, what anyone would draw from it was that there was a problem with the audit readiness of Fujitsu but – and these things definitely needed to be corrected, but that it was not problematic in terms of the integrity of the data that had been used in the audit for the purpose of financial reporting. And if I, you know, had focused on it, that’s what I would have drawn from it.
Mr Stevens: I want to come to the meeting at which this was discussed shortly but can we also look at another point raised on page 7. We see it talks about challenges to Horizon, and we know, by this point, Post Office had received at least five letters of claim in the Access Law/Shoosmiths related matter.
Dame Greene: I only read four.
Mr Stevens: We don’t need to worry –
Dame Greene: Okay.
Mr Stevens: You received some letters?
Dame Greene: We did not – but, again, vastly understated, relative to what was the scale of the issue. But yes.
Mr Stevens: “[Post Office Limited] has, over the years, had to dismiss and prosecute a number of subpostmasters and Crown staff, following financial losses in branches.”
Presumably by this time, December 2011, you were already aware of Post Office’s involvement in prosecuting subpostmasters?
Dame Greene: You know, Mr Stevens, I don’t remember that but I have read the documents, and I don’t know how much I would have focused on that issue at that time because, as I mentioned to you, when it came to our Audit Committee, it came at the initiative of our Chairman, who had read Private Eye’s article and activated the Audit and Risk oversight of this matter. And, from the reading of the documents that you’ve provided, it just – it doesn’t come across as an issue anywhere near the scale of what the issue was. So, in answer to your question, I don’t know if I would have focused on that.
Mr Stevens: My question was slightly different. My question was: if you knew of Post Office’s involvement in prosecuting subpostmasters. I’m going to come to that in more detail later, so park it there.
Dame Greene: Okay.
Mr Stevens: Looking at paragraph 26, this refers to four broad strands of challenge, it says:
“Prosecution and civil debt recovery actions by POL where the defence claim Horizon is flawed – these have consistently been won on the facts of Horizon transaction logs. Judges have spoken supportively of Horizon.”
Then it goes on to discuss threatened civil claims for damages, and it says:
“… 4 letters of claim have been received – of those, one is now time-barred”, et cetera.
So that’s the papers that went there.
Let’s look at the minutes of the meeting itself please. It’s RMG00000003. So we see it’s the Royal Mail Holdings Audit and Risk Committee meeting on 8 December 2011. If we can go down slightly, please. We see you are there listed second in attendance, and we also have further down, Chris Day, Lesley Sewell and Rod Ismay who were the three sponsors on that paper. Yes?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: If we can go in the paper, please, to – if we could turn the page, please, and again. Sorry, over the page, please, and down, please, to (f). Pausing there. So “Challenges to Horizon”. It says:
“[Post Office Limited] has, over the years, had to dismiss and prosecute number of subpostmasters and Crown staff, following financial losses in branches.”
So it’s very similar wording to what was in the paper. It says:
“The Committee noted the update on this matter.”
Would the paper have been supplemented by anyone speaking to it or would it simply have been read?
Dame Greene: I don’t remember but, usually, if our corporate secretary used the word “noted”, it was not discussed and, as you can see from the minutes, there are a lot of things on that agenda.
Mr Stevens: By that, what sort of elements of that, sorry?
Dame Greene: Well, there were a lot of things to get through, and some of them would have been perceived, as at that time and on the basis of what was known and said to us at that time, some of the other items would have been perceived to be requiring greater allocation of time and discussion.
Mr Stevens: Can you recall, either at this meeting or at any other point, ever being told that Post Office had pursued a prosecution where a subpostmaster had raised Horizon as a defence and that subpostmaster had then been acquitted?
Dame Greene: I don’t specifically recall that but, certainly, the documentation that you have provided allows me to see an email trail where, as I said, our Chairman, Sir Donald Brydon who was also, up until the time of Ms Perkins’ appointment, was also the Chairman of Post Office Board, he having seen a document – having seen it an article in Private Eye, activated the Audit and Risk framework inside Royal Mail. So I don’t personally recall but I can see that – from the documents you’ve provided, I have a reasonable picture of what happened.
Mr Stevens: If we go up, please, on this document, we see a discussion of the “Update on Horizon controls and relationship with Fujitsu”. If we scroll down, we see it’s noting matters to be covered in the report.
In your witness statement, you say that the minutes do not disclose Rod Ismay, who was at this meeting, having made any statement to the committee about Horizon, and you make the point he’d done what we now know as the Ismay Report a year earlier.
Now, you say the minutes do not disclose it. Do you have a positive recollection on whether Mr Ismay said or didn’t say anything at the meeting?
Dame Greene: I don’t.
Mr Stevens: What about Lesley Sewell?
Dame Greene: No, I don’t have any recollection. I don’t have any recollection of a discussion on this matter.
Mr Stevens: Shall we take, then, that your evidence on this is that the ARC were effectively reassured by the paper which we went to earlier?
Dame Greene: I would think so.
Mr Stevens: Can we look, please, at POL00029114. This was a document sent to you by the Inquiry. As you say in your witness statement, you’re listed in the distribution list; do you have any recollection of ever receiving this or a document like it?
Dame Greene: No, I don’t have personal recollection but I believe that this would have been done by the Royal Mail Internal Audit Group, led by Derek Foster with whom, you know, we had a highly positive professional relationship, to the point that, if there had been anything, especially in this period of time, because remember we’re almost through all of the discussions on separating all of the various points of intersection between Post Office and Royal Mail. If he, Derek, had any concern about anything not being attended to properly, the kind of relationship we had is that he would have spoken to me and I have no recollection of such a conversation.
Mr Stevens: So we see it’s “Review of key system controls in Horizon”, it’s a draft report dated February 2012. If we turn to page 3, please. It talks about “Master data” at the top:
“No audit trail exists for change requests received by Fujitsu from the Network Business Support Centre.”
It says at the bottom “Implication”:
“It is difficult to detect and prevent inappropriate changes being made to master data.”
Then “[Ernst & Young] Management Letter”, at the bottom. It refers to the matters identified by the letter, and it says this:
“Progress has been made in completing the actions arising from the [Ernst & Young] management letter. The [Ernst & Young] recommendations that require most additional work relate to”, and then it lists out what those were.
Did anyone tell you at this point, contrary to what had been said before, the recommendations in the management letter remained outstanding and to be completed?
Dame Greene: I don’t recall that and, in other documents that have been provided, it seems like we were being informed as a Board that good progress was being made.
Mr Stevens: Do you know, why has there been a breakdown in communication? Can you help us with why the Board has been given a different story?
Dame Greene: I really can’t because I don’t have any personal recollection of it and I’m trying to piece it together from the documentation that the Inquiry has provided. There was a lot going on, as there always was in Royal Mail, around that time and, you know, I just – I wish I could help more.
Mr Stevens: Is potentially a problem that there was a disconnect at this point between – or lack of communication between Post Office and the Royal Mail Board because of the impending separation?
Dame Greene: I don’t think so because, if you look at the whole architecture around how the separation was going to take place, it was very well thought out. All of the various points of intersection had team leaders from Royal Mail and from Post Office working together to try to assess what would be the impact if we had to become separated, what would be the service impact and how did we make sure that we didn’t drop the ball anywhere?
That was a very big framework that underpinned all of the discussion that took place, quite across all – both companies in every department. So it’s hard for me to understand, because there would have been a huge amount of communication taking place in the context of just trying to articulate what were the implications of the separation in almost every single aspect, from facilities to technology to finance to, you know, the corporate secretariat. So it’s hard for me to understand how certain things like this did not get flagged up more.
Mr Stevens: Sir, that’s probably a good time to take the afternoon break, as I’m coming on to a new topic. Can I ask that we break until 3.00?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, of course.
Mr Stevens: Thank you.
(2.50 pm)
(A short break)
(3.00 pm)
Mr Stevens: Sir, can you continue to see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: I can.
Mr Stevens: Thank you, I’ll continue.
Dame Moya, I now want to look at oversight of criminal and civil proceedings. Please could we have your witness statement at page 5, paragraph 13. You say:
“The policy decision relating to Post Office separation was taken long before I arrived at Royal Mail. The Post Office operated in a fairly autonomous way and had clearly done so for some time. It had its own corporate functions including: Finance; IT; HR; Government Relations; Company Secretary; Marketing; and Legal.”
Pausing there, what do you mean by Post Office having its own legal function?
Dame Greene: This was just an impression that I formed that in the general corporate function areas, they had people who specialised in those areas for the Post Office and the impression was formed because, when we were doing all of the work underpinning the separation, you know, we had to think about people and the tasks that they did and which ones of them would, under the transfer of undertakings, go to one organisation or go to the other.
It seemed to me that, in these corporate areas – and this, again, is just an impression that I formed – in these corporate areas, it was very clear that there were some people in the legal area whose work was almost exclusively for the Post Office, and so they would go to the Post Office.
Mr Stevens: Just continuing on, it may become relevant later, you also say:
“The two companies operated from different headquarters (Royal Mail at Blackfriars, London and the Post Office at Old Street, London).”
You refer to there being almost no overlap between staff at the two organisations.
Dame Greene: That is my recollection.
Mr Stevens: Can we jump forward, please, to page 35, paragraph 103. Thank you. You’re here speaking about the Ismay Report and you refer to David Smith, the Managing Director of Post Office, not raising it with him, and you say:
“I would have expected David Smith and Post Office Limited’s Head of Criminal Law, Rob Wilson, to conclude that an independent review was necessary.”
Pausing there, was your understanding that Rob Wilson was the Head of Criminal Law for Post Office Limited?
Dame Greene: Yes, but I don’t remember him. I have learned that through this Inquiry, and I apologise to Mr Wilson if I have met him but I don’t remember him.
Mr Stevens: If we can bring that document down, please, and bring up POL00046235. This is a letter I think you were given this morning by the Inquiry and you see it’s on Royal Mail headed paper. It says “Legal Services, 3rd Floor, 6a Eccleston Street”, that looks like an address in Victoria, London. Do you recall that being an address operated by Royal Mail?
Dame Greene: I don’t, I’m sorry. We had a lot of sites, hundreds of them.
Mr Stevens: You see it’s sent to Maureen Moors, National Security Team, Post Office Limited and, if we look down, please, we see it concerns the case of Post Office Limited v Ishaq. Now, Mr Ishaq was convicted of theft on 7 March 2013 and sentenced to 54 weeks’ imprisonment. His conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in Hamilton & Others v Post Office. You’ll have read from this document that Mr Wilson gives advice and comments on the charging decision.
Dame Greene: (The witness nodded)
Mr Stevens: You’re nodding your head.
Dame Greene: Yes, yes, I’m sorry.
Mr Stevens: If we go to the end of the document, please, at the second page. It’s Rob G Wilson, Head of Criminal Law, Criminal Law Division, and it’s a Royal Mail email address, and at the bottom we have “Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Limited”.
Were you aware, when you were CEO, that Rob Wilson worked within Royal Mail itself?
Dame Greene: I don’t remember Rob Wilson but I suppose I should do. I mean, the evidence here is that he did.
Mr Stevens: Let’s go wider. Were you aware of the Criminal Law Team in the Legal Department of Royal Mail?
Dame Greene: I was aware of a criminal law team, yes, because we, in Royal Mail, had offences as well as the Post Office did so, yes, I was aware of a criminal law team.
Mr Stevens: So when you say you had offences as well, are you talking about there where someone, maybe an employee of Royal Mail, was accused of, say, opening envelopes or stealing mail?
Dame Greene: Yes, of stealing Special Delivery. You know, there are a range of offences.
Mr Stevens: So you knew that the Criminal Law Team within Royal Mail dealt with those types of offences or allegations?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Were you aware that the Criminal Law Team within Royal Mail also dealt with prosecutions against subpostmasters?
Dame Greene: I wasn’t. I thought that was dealt with by the Criminal Law Team in the Post Office.
Mr Stevens: Let’s explore that. What basis did you have for thinking there was a Criminal Law Team within the Post Office?
Dame Greene: Because I don’t remember ever being briefed on subpostmaster issues except, you know, very tangentially. I remember that, from time to time, perhaps every half year, the Board would get an overview of security matters in Royal Mail, and everything from, you know, whether or not we were controlling our sites well enough, whether or not we had appropriate revenue protection in place, whether our products were properly designed to minimise, you know, any loss of mail because we were regulated on, you know, the safety of the mail, the security of the mail.
So I remember that and, in that context, I remember hearing about offences that had been committed and, I mean, I’m sure that it would have included an overview for the whole group but I don’t specifically remember offences against subpostmasters.
The first occasion – if I may, just to clarify – the first occasion when it really registered with me that, you know, there was the potential for wrongful prosecutions of subpostmasters was when I received the letter to me personally. I couldn’t remember who – from whom it came and it turns out, on the basis of the evidence, on the documentation that you’ve provided me, it was Lord Arbuthnot. I am just trying to explain to you that I don’t remember subpostmasters.
Mr Stevens: If I can pause you there because we’ll look at when you received that letter shortly. Given the Royal Mail Criminal Law Team, which was within your company, was advising and was involved in the prosecution of subpostmasters, do you accept you should have known that as Chief Executive?
Dame Greene: Yes, I guess I should have known but I didn’t.
Mr Stevens: Who briefed you on the extent of the role of the Criminal Law Team within Royal Mail when you joined the company?
Dame Greene: When I joined the company, the senior team was in a state of flux and I don’t remember getting briefed on this. We had – at that point, the General Counsel was a gentleman named Mr Evans. He wasn’t there for very long. We appointed, then, on an interim basis, Jeff Triggs. I see from the documentation that has been provided to me from the Inquiry that Jeff Triggs did include some information to our audit committees on subpostmaster prosecutions but I don’t personally recall being briefed on that.
Mr Stevens: Can we look, please, at POL00432053. So this the Master Services Agreement relating to the separation of Royal Mail Group and Post Office Limited. Can we turn to page 4, please. We can see in the recitals – the second recital refers to it – that there’s going to be a separation of the current corporate structure, so they will be separate companies, and at (C) it says:
“This agreement sets out the terms on which the Provider shall provide the Services to the Recipient and makes provision for the transition of termination of the Services.”
So, in essence, what this is saying is, before separation, Royal Mail provided services to Post Office Limited. After separation, we need to transition off those services and this provides how that will happen.
Dame Greene: Correct.
Mr Stevens: I think you were involved in, I think, reviewing and determining what services needed to go from Royal Mail to Post Office?
Dame Greene: Correct.
Mr Stevens: Can we look, please, at page 147, which is part of the first schedule to the agreement. You see “Section M”, it says, “Services to Cease”, and this sets out the services that were to cease on separation itself. So, effectively, these services come to a stop on – I think it’s 31 March, but ready for separation in April. Correct?
Dame Greene: Correct.
Mr Stevens: We see “Workstream” on the middle column and then “Description of services to cease”. Can we please turn to page 150. Is it possible to rotate that, please.
44 – it appears we might be having some difficulty with that. I hope you’ll take it from me –
Dame Greene: I will.
Mr Stevens: – 44, it says, “Legal” in the middle column and then on the right it says, “POL Legal”, and then, over the page, it says 49 “Legal”, in the middle column, and then in the right column it says, “Criminal Law”. Then the page after, the Service End Date is 31 March 2012.
So this document shows that it was a part of the negotiations and agreement about the criminal law services from Royal Mail to Post Office stopping. Is your evidence that you weren’t aware that Royal Mail was providing criminal law services to Post Office Limited?
Dame Greene: I guess I didn’t think – it didn’t register with me. I suppose, if I, you know, think about it, maybe it was all part of one team, but inside that team, certain individuals worked exclusively on POL criminal legal work and other individuals worked on Royal Mail criminal work. I’m just not sure.
Mr Stevens: Can we bring up, please, POL00031004.
Sorry, sir. I think we’re going to have to take a five-minute break because the system has crashed, ironically.
Can I ask you, sir, if you don’t mind staying on screen and we’ll see if it can be fixed in a short period?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, that’s fine. I’ll just stay here, quietly minding my own business until you tell me to pay attention again.
Mr Stevens: Thank you, sir.
Dame Moya, I apologise. We’ll try to sort this out.
(3.17 pm)
(A short break)
(3.21 pm)
Mr Stevens: Sir, can you continue and see and hear us?
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, I can.
Mr Stevens: We have hopefully resolved that matter now.
I’m going to go to a different document, actually. Can we please bring up POL00030800.
So this a Royal Mail Group policy and we see at the top it’s Royal Mail Group, and then the business units: Post Office, Royal Mail and Parcelforce. Yes?
Dame Greene: Correct.
Mr Stevens: We see the owner is Rob Wilson, Head of Criminal Law Team?
Dame Greene: Correct.
Mr Stevens: If we can go over the page, please, the “Purpose” of the policy includes, 1.1.3:
“Applies equally to employees at every level, whether frontline, management or executive, and to non-employees equally, whether contractors, customers or having no formal relationship with the Royal Mail Group.”
So would you accept this is a Group policy –
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: – and within its remit would be prosecutions against subpostmasters?
Dame Greene: Yes. Well, I – yes. If it – yes.
Mr Stevens: If we go to page 3, please.
Dame Greene: The only hesitation I have, Mr Stevens, is the date of this policy, because it was I believe in 2012, was it not?
Mr Stevens: Well, if we go back to page 1, please – I should have taken you to the date, for which I apologise – it’s dated created September 2008, it’s Version 3, effective from April 2011.
Dame Greene: The only reason why I think the date is important is because, as part of the separation process and, indeed, in preparation for a hoped-for listing of Royal Mail, every policy in the company was updated. Every employment policy, every facilities management policy and, of course, this policy would have been part of that. So I think some of them went back to 2008 but some of them were much older, and so I am – the reason why I am asking about the date is that, when you asked me does it apply to subpostmasters, I guess it does, in 2011; in 2012, it probably would not.
Mr Stevens: No, indeed. We don’t need to turn it up but there is a Post Office Prosecution Policy Version 1 that is from 1 April 2012. The reference for that, sir, for your benefit, is POL00031034.
If we can turn, then, back to page 3, paragraph 4.5, it describes about the requirements of the Group Code of Conduct, and says:
“In the event of any disagreement with prosecution advice in England and Wales, or inconsistency between prosecution and conduct decisions anywhere in the United Kingdom, the Head of the Criminal Law Team and the Head of the Investigation Team will consider the case and provide guidance and advice to ensure that the Royal Mail Group maintains a consistent prosecution policy.”
So the purpose of this document was, at group level, to ensure the two amounts you used earlier, that someone, a Royal Mail employee accused of stealing letters, and a subpostmaster were prosecuted in accordance with the same policy?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: That can come down, thank you.
In your witness statement, paragraph 12, page 5, you say:
“When I joined, my immediate priority was to resolve these issues in a way that would allow Royal Mail to satisfy the Financial Conduct Authority’s eligibility requirements for admission of shares to the premium listing segment of the Official List so that the company’s shares could be traded on the London Stock Exchange and attract investor interest.”
You go on to say:
“They necessitated a programme which involved a complete review of: Royal Mail’s policies, procedures and practices (to enable Royal Mail to comply with its ongoing listing obligations); the finance and operations of the company; ongoing liabilities and risks; and competencies of the Executive Team.”
Would you, as part of that and in your role as CEO, have reviewed policies such as the prosecution policy I just took you to?
Dame Greene: I remember reviewing a major thick book of policies but I cannot tell you for certain if I focused on this particular one. But I do remember being prepared for me a very large book of policies. So I expect that I would have read this but I don’t have a recollection of it now, but I expect I would have.
Mr Stevens: Would you agree that it’s unusual for a business to bring private prosecutions?
Dame Greene: It has been a thematic strand in this Inquiry but, I have to say, I am not as surprised as some people are because, you know, I had a very senior position in Canada when I was in the Civil Service, in the Department of Transportation, and there were specialised police forces with investigation powers and I believe, in some cases, prosecution powers. So I was not as surprised about that as some people have been.
Mr Stevens: This is a private company. It may be owned by the Government but it’s a company; would you accept that it’s unusual for a company to pursue private prosecutions?
Dame Greene: I would accept that but, historically, you know, this company has unusual roots. Historically, it started off as a Government Department. So this may be a holdover from its historical background.
Mr Stevens: Would you agree that a business exposes itself to various risks if it brings prosecutions?
Dame Greene: Yes, and it exposes itself to risks if it ignores offences against it as well.
Mr Stevens: So, in bringing the prosecution, it could be criticised in how it took the decision to prosecute; would you agree?
Dame Greene: It could be.
Mr Stevens: It could be criticised for the conduct of the prosecution?
Dame Greene: It could be. However, if the prosecution and the decision to prosecute is a good one and a fair one, backed by the kind of impartiality that would be expected, then I don’t think that it necessarily presents a big risk.
Mr Stevens: Is what you’ve done there: identified a risk, analysed it and then suggested a mitigation for the risk?
Dame Greene: Yes, but I would say, Mr Stevens, in that – in that framework, probably anything could be identified as a risk if it’s not thought of properly.
Mr Stevens: There were clear and obvious risks arising from if prosecutions aren’t pursued fairly, would you agree with that: for example, there’s a risk of unsafe convictions?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Would you agree that bringing private prosecutions calls for thorough oversight by the executive of the company that is pursuing those prosecutions?
Dame Greene: Not necessarily on a case-by-case basis, no. I think if you have competent people and if they are exercising their duties properly, you know – and the Executive Team of a company cannot do every job in the company, so I think it depends.
Mr Stevens: You said there, if you had competent people, I think the other one was if they were doing their job properly; would you accept the Executive Team has to have a system in place to check both of those things, to satisfy itself that both of those things are being done?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Do you think extra care needs to be taken on those matters where the business is investigating and prosecuting alleged crimes where it itself is the alleged victim?
Dame Greene: I think, arguably, yes.
Mr Stevens: What did the Royal Mail Board do in your time there to oversee or mitigate the risk of prosecutions against subpostmasters?
Dame Greene: I think the most important thing that our Board and our Audit and Risk Committee did, under the aegis of the Chairman, who was, until Ms Perkins was appointed, also Chairman of Post Office, when he read about – in Private Eye, he activated the risk management process of Royal Mail, to make sure that they were apprised, that there was an evolving situation that could indeed become a larger risk than it was being presented at that time.
Mr Stevens: Can I just pause you there. That’s, I think you’re referring to where a Private Eye article was raised and then queries were raised as to the integrity of the Horizon IT system and the –
Dame Greene: And the potential for –
Mr Stevens: – potential for civil claim. That’s slightly different from a proactive risk management approach and asking what the Board did to satisfy itself that prosecutions against subpostmasters were being carried out fairly.
Dame Greene: All I can help the Inquiry with is the information that has been provided to me because I don’t have a personal recollection but I will say that as we put in place the risk management framework and developed the risk register system, it was a process that cut across the company entirely, including the subsidiaries. And so we had a bottom-up and a top-down approach to the identification of risks and, even though I cannot personally recall this, but in the Legal Department, they would have certainly flagged this up and decided what kind of a rating to give it on the risk register. So that’s the first thing. And I think it was our Audit and Risk Committee, under – I think Matthew Lester was the senior executive in charge of putting that process in place. But this was a framework that was only just beginning, in the 2010/2012 period.
Mr Stevens: Can I just clarify: I think earlier in your evidence you said you don’t recall seeing prosecutions against subpostmasters being on the risk registers?
Dame Greene: I don’t recall it, no, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t and that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t discussed. It was a long time ago. I don’t recall it.
Mr Stevens: Is the answer that the Royal Mail Board took no steps to oversee how prosecutions against subpostmasters were being conducted?
Dame Greene: I would not say that from the evidence that you have provided me with. As I say, the – we had – it was very clear where the management of risks in subsidiaries lay and the management of, I think, this particular set of risks probably started in Post Office but, from a group perspective and getting your arms around the risks of all subsidiaries in the organisation, I certainly remember that being a preoccupation. I can’t give you the exact date.
And I think our Board members were alert to emerging risks and, in that context, called for information, so that it could be assessed by the Board. So I am sorry, but I think you are being perhaps more categoric than I would be on that.
Mr Stevens: I want to move to a different topic and look at some of your discussions with Paula Vennells, please. Can we bring up POL –
Sir Wyn Williams: Before you do that, Mr Stevens, can I just ask, because it’s been wandering around in my mind as this discussion has been going on, following separation, Dame Moya, Post Office, in about 2013, either reduced very dramatically, or ceased prosecuting subpostmasters. It doesn’t matter the reasons why, for the purpose of my question. What about Royal Mail? In the period that you were Chief Executive, between 2012 and 2018 when you ceased to be, did Royal Mail continue to prosecute its employees if they thought that appropriate?
Dame Greene: Yes, from the information, sir, that has been provided to me, prosecutions reduced over time, as we took other strategies to protect the mail and to protect our revenue, but there were prosecutions.
Sir Wyn Williams: All right. Thank you.
Sorry, Mr Stevens.
Mr Stevens: Not at all, sir. Thank you.
Could we bring up the letter from Lord Arbuthnot to you. It’s POL00105483. I think you were referring to this letter earlier?
Dame Greene: Yes, correct, sir.
Mr Stevens: Can we go down, there’s a – there are two complaints in this email. One is about the closure of a Post Office, the second is in the second paragraph, and it says:
“I am concerned on a number of fronts. First, my constituents tell me that this case appears to be a continuation of the problems that Post Office employees have been having with the software system that reconciled takings. I am aware of 34 individual employees throughout the country who feel they have been wrongly accused of fraud due to faults in this particular system …”
It goes on to discuss a meeting.
In your witness statement – we don’t need to bring it up, but, sir, for you it’s paragraph 112 – you say you have a positive recollection of this letter; is this right?
Dame Greene: I do. I didn’t remember that it was Lord Arbuthnot but I remembered getting a letter around this time which registered with me, and it registered with me because it was different from the way in which the issue had been described in our Audit and Risk Committee.
Mr Stevens: I think in your statement you refer to the fact that the number, the 34 similar complaints, is that something that triggered –
Dame Greene: It did, yeah.
Mr Stevens: Were you concerned that there may possibly be an issue with the prosecutions that Post Office pursued at this point?
Dame Greene: I didn’t know about that. I was concerned that there was something wrong with the system and it – that the fault in the system was causing people to be falsely charged and horribly falsely convicted. So I didn’t know that the process for the prosecutions was also the subject of such, you know, disquieting and, you know –
Mr Stevens: But you had a concern about the convictions because of the system?
Dame Greene: I did. I thought, because what we were being told at the audit committee – and it’s borne out in the minutes – we were told that there’s no problem with the system, and that we were also told that there were a handful, a few people who were blaming the system but the fault was not with the system. This caused me to think about it in a different way.
Mr Stevens: Were you concerned that there may be claims against Royal Mail Group?
Dame Greene: No, not at all. I mean, it’s hard for people to imagine but, you know, we had the biggest fleet in the country. We had thousands and thousands of suppliers. We had lots of claims against Royal Mail. And so, you know, I’m not – I was not worried about claims about Royal Mail. What I was worried about was that there might be people who are being wrongfully convicted on the basis of a false belief on our part that the system is, you know, faultless.
Mr Stevens: That document can come down. Thank you.
In your statement you refer to a conversation that you remember having with Paula Vennells thereafter. Did you express those concerns to her?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: What did she say in response?
Dame Greene: Well, I had suggested to Mrs Vennells that we really needed to do a complete drains-up, root and branch review of that system, taking into account, you know, what people were saying about it. You know, this was not any longer just a handful; I mean, this is a significant group of people. And she said that the system had been reviewed, it had been reviewed on multiple times – at – you know, multiple occasions, that there was no problem with the system, that there could be issues around keying errors but she had – there, certainly, what I recall from the conversation – she didn’t think we needed to do the sort of independent review that I was suggesting.
Mr Stevens: Why didn’t you go ahead with an independent review within Royal Mail?
Dame Greene: That’s a good question. I think I was somehow given reassurance that it had been tested, it had been reviewed but also, at that time, you know, all of the issues, the substantive issues around separation, had been resolved. We had – in the Post Office Board and in the Royal Mail Board, our Executive Teams had been given the go-ahead to sign the agreement, so the practices and conventions and protocols that were in place for companies that were entirely separate, those were live and, for those two reasons, I didn’t press it further at that time.
Mr Stevens: Did you think, at that point, that that is an issue, the allegation of potentially unsafe convictions; did you see that as being something that totally transferred to Post Office on separation?
Dame Greene: Yes, because, you know, I thought that the prosecutorial function, even if it may have come under the heading of Royal Mail Group, I thought it was a team inside the Royal Mail Group that carried out all of those tasks.
Mr Stevens: What do you mean by that when you say you thought it was a team inside the Royal Mail Group –
Dame Greene: I thought that – well, let me try to put it in context. When we did all of the work on the separation, in all areas of the company, we had teams working at all levels and there was an escalation process if there was any issues or, you know, you couldn’t get to resolution as to how that particular area was going to be dealt with. Nobody raised to me, in the context of that, that there was any issue with respect to legal or criminal law, and my assumption, perhaps wrong, was that this was a pretty easy group of employees to move to the Post Office, my assumption was because they had spent most of their daily working time on Post Office matters.
Mr Stevens: So at this time, you did know there was a team in Royal Mail working on the criminal law aspects which was to transfer over, that’s what I’m trying to –
Dame Greene: Well, I’m just saying to you it wasn’t raised to me as an issue. I knew that there was a Royal Mail Criminal Law Team but, perhaps wrongly, I thought, inside that team, there were dedicated resources that were working on criminal law matters for Post Office. That was my assumption.
So in my conversations with Mrs Vennells, first, I didn’t know at that time that there was any issue about the oppressive and harsh nature in which the prosecutions were being conducted, but, secondly – and I think more importantly – I thought these – there was a separation between prosecutorial matters inside the Post Office versus prosecutorial matters inside the Royal Mail.
Mr Stevens: I’m going to jump forward quite significantly in the timeline now. Can we bring up PVEN00000500 and page 2, please. These were documents provided by Paula Vennells to the Inquiry to suggest that they are messages on 9 May 2022; do you accept these are text messages between you and Paula Vennells?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Can we go down, please, to the one at 8.41, and you say at the bottom:
“Horizon is the real villain here and thank god we finally learnt about the frailty in the system. We think it is computerised, it is untamperable, infallible …
“Not so.
“Stand tall.
“I know you are a good person and would never never accuse anyone in the wrong.”
Can I ask what you meant by that last line:
“I know you are a good person and would never never accuse anyone in the wrong.”
Dame Greene: Well, the first thing I want to say is that I thought this would be a private communication and I want to just say there’s a context to this. Mrs Vennells was being vilified in the press, and we didn’t know, at that time, in 2022, what we know now, as a result of the evidence that has emerged in this Inquiry. And so, at that time, I could only say what I saw, and what I saw when I worked with Mrs Vennells was a hard working executive who was a problem solver, and not at all the kind of person that she has been portrayed.
Mr Stevens: So this is effectively supportive, saying you wouldn’t accuse anyone of doing anything wrong without a basis, or something along those lines?
Dame Greene: Well, I think it speaks for itself.
Mr Stevens: Can we please bring up PVEN00000533. It’s another message, it says:
“Dear Paula
“What a terrible time.
“Just tell the truth.
“I know you are a good person and friends will be hard to find now.
“What has happened is a terrible, horrible thing. So many lives ruined.
“Yours too.
“Just tell the truth.
“What you knew. What you thought at the time.
“What they told you!
“Any mistakes you made.”
Do you recall roughly when you sent this text message and what prompted you to send it?
Dame Greene: I think I had been travelling and I had come back into the country after an extended trip, and I think my YouTube artificial intelligence was sending up things for me to watch but I can’t remember exactly.
Mr Stevens: We see, over the page, there’s a reply, and then the message starts:
“Paula,
“Am just back in the UK.”
If we could then bring up PVEN00000532. We see that message picking up there:
“Paula,
“Am just back in the UK.
“What I have learned from inquiry/Parliamentary committee questions is very damaging.
“Nick was a poor witness.”
Is that Nick Read?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: “Chairman gone. He will be next.
“When it was clear the system was at fault, the [Post Office] should have raising a red flag, stopped all proceedings, given people back their money and then tried to compensate them for the ruin this caused in their lives.”
Go over the page, this is the reply:
“Yes, I agree. This has/is taking too long Moya. The toll on everyone affected is dreadful.
“I hope you have a good break and are well.”
You then say:
“I don’t know what to say. I think you knew.”
What did you think Paula Vennells knew?
Dame Greene: Oh, gosh. I think she knew, on the basis of the evidence that has emerged in this Inquiry, that there were faults in the system. I think that Post Office Executives, including Mrs Vennells, continued to slavishly, in my opinion, adhere to the position that was not tenable, on the basis of the evidence presented here, that there were no faults or, you know, if you look at the evidence that has been given in my bundle and has been presented to the Inquiry, going back to 2008, Fujitsu told Post Office employees, I don’t know who, that there was the ability to manipulate branch accounts remotely.
And then, in 2010, it was – that information went beyond that individual exchange between Fujitsu and Post Office. It went now into Post Office, 2011 –
Mr Stevens: Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, can I pause you there? One thing I wanted to ask here is, there’s a change from the message I took you to first to here and you’re now saying “I think you knew”. The change and the points you’re making there, what is the basis of the knowledge? Is it things that have come out in this Inquiry?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Mr Stevens: Is there anything else that you’re basing that on?
Dame Greene: No.
Mr Stevens: Has anything that’s come out in this Inquiry made you reflect on past events, conversations with others, when you were in post in Royal Mail, in a different way?
Dame Greene: Well, the only conversations I had were with people who would probably be as shocked as I am that all of the assertions and undertakings that had been given to all of us, the Executive Team of Royal Mail, the Audit and Risk Committee of Royal Mail, these were just not so. So I don’t think that those conversations would have helped me. It was really – what changed my mind was the evidence that has come out of this Inquiry.
Mr Stevens: I perhaps didn’t ask, my question is slightly different: when you have seen something in this Inquiry and what you’ve learned through the Inquiry, has any of that, when you’re looking back on conversations you may have had with Paula Vennells in 2015, 2011, has any of that information given you a different reflection on that conversation, or do you see it in a different light?
Dame Greene: I do see it in a different light. Because I do think that we were misled. I think that it was grossly understated, the gravity of the situation, and it has had calamitous, calamitous results for people. So I think we were misled, and this assertion continued, you know, for a very long time.
Mr Stevens: Sir, those are all the questions I have.
I understand there may be questions from Core Participants. If I may just take a moment to get time estimates, we had a slight break with the document.
(Pause)
Mr Stevens: Sir, we do have requests. Mr Henry has asked for I think 10 to 12 minutes, and – it’s just Mr Henry, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right. Well, I am sure that Mr Henry will adhere to his time estimate.
Over to you, Mr Henry.
Questioned by Mr Henry
Mr Henry: Absolutely, sir.
Dame Moya, you’re a strong leader, would you agree?
Dame Greene: I don’t think it’s for me to say, Mr Henry.
Mr Henry: But you have clear objectives which you communicate clearly to the people who work with you?
Dame Greene: I have tried to do that, yes.
Mr Henry: Yes. You set the tone about what had to be done and how it was to be accomplished, so far as the separation, the investibility and the ultimate flotation, together of course, with Sir Donald?
Dame Greene: Yes, and a very strong Executive Team.
Mr Henry: Now, if it had become apparent that unpredictable intermittent bugs, errors and defects in Horizon had led to the prosecution, conviction and imprisonment of innocent people, that would have threatened your objectives, would it not?
Dame Greene: No.
Mr Henry: Why not?
Dame Greene: Well, my objectives were to modernise the company, to establish better relationships with our employees, better relationships with our unions, to modernise the technology, to try to create a company that had a customer focus –
Mr Henry: Can I stop you there –
Dame Greene: Those were my objectives, and so, you know, if we were doing something wrong, I would not shy away from it.
Mr Henry: So let’s, then, proceed with that clear and unambiguous statement. You wouldn’t have shied away from it. But it would have had a massive setback to the separation and the investibility of the entity, would it not, because you would have had this grotesque and appalling scandal, wouldn’t you, unfolding on your watch?
Dame Greene: Well, I would say, if I knew then what I know now, I would certainly not have managed this horrible, grotesque – to use your word – in the way in which it was managed. My view is that, when you find out that something has been done in gross error, like this, you put your hand up and you try to set it right as fast as you can. And, you know, if you do that, as an organisation, you’re far better off than if you just let things drift and get bigger and cause more ruination to people.
Mr Henry: Everybody would agree with what you’ve just said, so why didn’t you surface the risk?
Dame Greene: Well, I go back. I think we did. You know, if I look at –
Mr Henry: I’m sorry, you think you surfaced the risk?
Dame Greene: Well, we didn’t understand the risk because we were deliberately, in my opinion, misled.
Mr Henry: Part of it, though, you surely must accept, is that significant risks which are contained in papers were merely marked for noting – so, for example, litigation reports were marked for noting on your watch; you accept that?
Dame Greene: Yes, but that is not, in my opinion, Mr Henry – and I don’t want to, you know, seem in any way argumentative – we knew where we had claims. We knew what the value of those claims were, we knew how much cash we had to reserve against those claims. We didn’t shy away from that. What we were told is that this is a small number of claims, the likelihood of success – I think the word that was used was “remote”. This was a gathering, gathering storm, I would say. And when we activated the risk management system to at least surface it, the way in which it was described was a gross understatement of what it was.
Mr Henry: I’m going to come to that but, now that you have raised it, paragraph 137 of your statement – no need to take you to it – but you said:
“Prior to separation, as I have explained above, the narrative had focused on the audit preparedness of Fujitsu, the small number of threatened claims by subpostmasters and the insistence that Horizon was not at fault. All of this now appeared to me an entirely incorrect characterisation of the issues.”
Now this was your point of view, however, in 2015/2016. Why didn’t you get to grips with it before separation; you say that you were misled?
Dame Greene: I think we were misled. It certainly wasn’t – it was the sort of mischaracterisation of a terrible situation, of a gathering storm. It was a mischaracterisation that was so great as to be incomprehensible.
Mr Henry: So how did Mr Triggs mislead you because the reports that you did not read and the reports notes that were noted, that he prepared, characterised it in that way?
Dame Greene: But he also said that the likelihood of the Post Office being liable in these matters was not great, and he had the advice of a very respected barrister, and so, as I said, we – and we didn’t shy away from assigning cash to claims. We had lots of claims. In fact, I think £75 million was assigned to – in one report that I saw.
So I think this was a complete mischaracterisation of this horrible, horrible situation. And, of course, the longer that situations like this go on, you know, the worse it is for the poor people whose lives are being ruined and also for the corporation who’s, you know, needing to be able to turn the page and – I’ll stop there.
Mr Henry: Can we go to the Ismay Report. You’ve got no recollection of the Ismay Report?
Dame Greene: No.
Mr Henry: If it had become apparent that the Ismay Report was a complete whitewash, that presumably, again, would have been something that would have disrupted the separation and flotation?
Dame Greene: No, I don’t think so, because if – you know, as I said, we had lots of claims. We had lots of technology risk. The entire technology estate of the Royal Mail Group was needing a complete revamping. So – and our whole approach was we will just start –
Mr Henry: You’ll just deal with it?
Dame Greene: We’ll deal with it.
Mr Henry: But you were, again, misled? Now, are you sure that you have absolutely nothing to do with the commission of the Ismay Report, because the Ismay Report occurred, or rather it was commissioned – we have heard from evidence, and it can be provided to you – six days after you assumed your post as CEO of RMG, and that Mr David Smith commissioned it on 21 July of the year that you took over, 2010.
Mr Ismay in evidence said that he had about two weeks to prepare it. Did it have absolutely nothing to do with your revamping and, as it were, stress testing of all the systems that had to be dealt with in order to meet the FCA eligibility requirements?
Dame Greene: Absolutely nothing.
Mr Henry: Thank you.
Dame Greene: I only learned about how bad was our technology state much later.
Mr Henry: Now, can I go to one final thing before I close, and this is a document that Mr Stevens took you to. It’s POL00030217.
You’ll remember this is dealing with the Ernst & Young report from 27 March 2011, and you were saying to Mr Stevens that, essentially, the complexion was that Fujitsu weren’t prepared for the audit. In other words, somehow or other, the message about remote access got spun or laundered to be about Fujitsu’s audit preparedness, rather than this red flag which exists in the report.
It’s your paragraph 73, in your witness statement, where you say that, even if you had read it, you wouldn’t have regarded it as creating a problem with Horizon, because you just thought that it was to do with, as it were, hygiene concerning access.
Mr Stevens took you to page 33 of the report. Can we go to the internal pagination, page 34. Could we go, top left-hand – yes – and top box:
“Admin access parameter ADM”, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I’m going to omit words and go down to the last six lines:
“Unrestricted access to privileged IT functions increases the risk of unauthorised/inappropriate access which may lead to the processing or unauthorised or erroneous transactions.”
For prosecutions that were predicated on the integrity of the Horizon system, that was clearly a risk that ought to have been drawn to your attention there and then; do you agree?
Dame Greene: I guess so, if it had been put together the way you just have done.
Mr Henry: But it’s there in black and white.
Dame Greene: Well, it is. It’s part of a much larger document, Mr Henry. But yes, I think it should have been drawn to our attention.
Mr Henry: It’s actually in the executive summary on page 3, one of the opening lines of the document. You had to strengthen the review of privileged access; do you see? It’s four lines from the bottom of the page:
“Strengthen the review of privileged access.”
I mean, it ought to have been staring you, Dame Moya, in the face, and you ought to have got a grip on it.
Dame Greene: I must say, I can understand why you would take that point of view. I would only ask you to consider the following: it was in the context of our outside auditor telling us that they had themselves – despite the failures of Fujitsu in getting themselves properly prepared to do a financial year-end close-up, that they had themselves tested the systems and that they had found that the systems were reliable and that there was no integrity of data problem.
Secondly, in response to what had happened in the 2010/2011 audit, where they had had to do more work and they were very put out about that, and it had cost more money and had been inefficient – in addition to that, in response, we had set in place with Post Office Limited a whole follow-up piece of work.
Mr Henry: I’m going to stop you there because you have referred to them – it’s POL00029114, POL00030482 – again, neither of which you claim to have seen or read, even though you’re on the circulation list, the Internal Audit Review of Horizon.
Dame Greene: But – that is true, Mr Henry.
Mr Henry: I mean, the fact is this was never bottomed out or resolved under your leadership before separation, was it?
Dame Greene: I don’t think that’s correct. If you look at the work that had been done, the follow-up work that had been done by Derek Foster in the Internal Audit Group, it’s a very detailed piece of work. He set in place, in the Post Office, a group that was charged with managing every single item that had been raised in that management letter, and progress was reported on a regular basis. So I must say, I cannot agree with you there. Even – I did not have the primary responsibility with the External Audit Group. That was, of course, our Chief Financial Officer, but that does not mean that – the work that had been identified here.
And in fact, if you go to the audit plan of E&Y for the following year, where they talk about how they are going to approach a very extensive piece of work, because now they have to present financials for the two companies, you will see that they have put in place measures where they would use their own software to test every single aspect of the systems that would relate to the reporting of data, whether in the Post Office or in Royal Mail.
So I can understand how you would take the position that you have taken but I would ask you to consider those matters.
Mr Henry: Dame Moya, I have nothing further to ask you. Thank you for answering my questions.
Mr Stevens: Sir, Ms Patrick has actually asked, as well, for five minutes. I said before to her about asking this question and I think it’s my error, misunderstanding.
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, Ms Patrick, I don’t want to stop you, obviously, but is it something that’s going to the heart of the problems that I have or is it peripheral, do you think?
Ms Patrick: Sir, it’s simply something that Dame Moya has raised herself about her reaction to Mr Arbuthnot’s letter.
I’d like to pick up some correspondence on behalf of Mr Julian Wilson that was sent shortly thereafter.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, all right.
Questioned by Ms Patrick
Ms Patrick: Dame Moya, I’m going to take this as quickly as I possibly can.
I represent some other subpostmasters who were convicted and had their convictions overturned, including Mr Trousdale, who sits on my right, and Ms Hamilton, on my left.
Before I go on with the question I have, Mr Stevens raised with you the involvement of Royal Mail Group and Royal Mail Group Legal in prosecutions pre-separation. Can you help us: who was responsible, at Executive level or Board level, for oversight of the Legal Team in Royal Mail Group?
Dame Greene: The General Counsel.
Ms Patrick: Who did the General Counsel report to?
Dame Greene: Me.
Ms Patrick: Thank you. Turning to the questions that I wanted to address, the Inquiry is very familiar with Mr Wilson, Mr Julian Wilson. His wife, Mrs Karen Wilson, is a Core Participant. Mr Wilson died before his conviction could be overturned in 2021 and she gave very powerful evidence in Phase 1 as to the human impact on him of his conviction. He’d been actively, very actively, involved in the Justice for Subpostmasters Group before his death.
Now, I don’t want to take this too slowly. A number of our clients were prosecuted pre-separation and the Inquiry has the documents. Mr Wilson’s investigation and trial documents appear under a Royal Mail Group banner.
Now, you’ve talked about the correspondence with Mr Arbuthnot and that changing your perception, and the 34 cases being particularly relevant to you. Now, in your witness statement, you also deal with a letter being received from Mrs Karen Lumley MP, on behalf of Mr Julian Wilson – and we won’t turn it up; it’s paragraphs 127 and 128 of your witness statement. You have said you can’t recall seeing that correspondence.
If we turn it up very quickly, it’s POL00058098. It’ll come up. While it’s coming up, the date on it, if you recall, was July 2012, so, after you’ve seen the letter from Mr Arbuthnot; is that fair, Dame Moya?
Dame Greene: Yes. I think the letter – the date there was December 2011; was that correct?
Ms Patrick: Yes, so after your perception might have changed about these repeated claims.
Now, if we turn to page 2, we’ll see Mr Wilson’s original message, and I know you’ve had a chance to look at this in preparation for today. You can read it yourself very briefly but he’s reacting to the appointment of an independent forensic accountant; can you see that there?
Dame Greene: I can.
Ms Patrick: He is raising three questions about the appointment: whether it’s independent; whether they’re going to look first at the computer because he’s saying he thinks that’s the problem; and, finally, he raises a specific point about whether the independent review is going to raise a particular issue about transaction management. Can you see that there, Dame Moya?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Ms Patrick: So they’re all questions about the independent review. I think you’ve said that, by this time, you were all for a drains-up, root-and-branch review. Dame Moya, you’re nodding. I have to say, you have to say for the –
Dame Greene: I beg your pardon. Yes.
Ms Patrick: So you were all for, by this point, root-and-branch independent review, and that’s what you were suggesting to Mrs Vennells?
Dame Greene: Yes.
Ms Patrick: Now, can we look at the reply very quickly. The reply you can see at POL00143463 and it doesn’t come from you. In your witness statement you say you can’t recall if you saw a reply –
Dame Greene: No.
Ms Patrick: – is that right?
Now, it’s very similar – if we scroll through the reply when it comes up – to a lot of correspondence the Inquiry has seen in reply to subpostmaster messages. It’s POL00143463. Thank you very much.
We can take it very quickly, I think. If we scan through, you can see the first few paragraphs. It’s responding to the MP’s message. You’ll be aware the email deals with the independent review. Third paragraph: has been appointed, the scope of the investigation is yet to be finalised:
“To ensure impartiality, Mr Arbuthnot has reviewed and approved the appointment.”
Then, I won’t look at the detail, but if we can scroll through the next four paragraphs, it’s dealing with the specific thing he asked the independent reviewer to consider and, if we scroll to the last of the three paragraphs there, it ends with:
“Interruptions to service connections do not create an issue for the Horizon system.
“Over the past ten years, many millions of branch reconciliations have been carried out by 25,000 subpostmasters and their staff in Post Office branches and transactions and balances accurately recorded. We continue to have absolute confidence in the robustness and integrity of the Horizon system, and our branch accounting processes.”
Dame Moya, if you had seen this reply, it’s going out to bat for the Post Office again, isn’t it?
Dame Greene: Sorry? I didn’t catch that.
Ms Patrick: It’s going out to bat for the system again, isn’t it; it’s saying the system is fine?
Dame Greene: I agree.
Ms Patrick: If you had seen this, after your perception had changed, having seen the James Arbuthnot letter, would you have been happy with this response going out in reply to a letter to you?
Dame Greene: No.
Ms Patrick: Now, this is after you’ve seen the Arbuthnot letter. You know this correspondence, I assume, had come in. Do you see correspondence that comes to you?
Dame Greene: Not necessarily. Oftentimes, it is handled by the Executive Correspondence Teams in Royal Mail and in Post Office.
Ms Patrick: Well, let’s put that to one side. He’s writing to you as the Chief – well, he’s written to his MP and his MP has directed to you as the parent, at the time he was investigated.
Now, Mr Wilson aside, having had your perception changed by the James Arbuthnot letter and knowing that Royal Mail Group had been the Post Office parent for a very long time, did you ever look back and think “What were we doing; did we have any role in this”?
Dame Greene: I never asked that question, but I did ask questions, going forward. But at that point, you know, we were brushed aside, and I think the evidence that has been provided to me in my bundles show that.
Ms Patrick: Dame Moya, you asked questions but today, in response to questions from Mr Stevens, you didn’t know that Royal Mail Group Legal had been in the thick of these prosecutions?
Dame Greene: I thought it was the Post Office Legal Team.
Ms Patrick: Okay. Dame Moya –
Sir Wyn Williams: Who signed that letter? I can’t see on the screen.
Ms Patrick: Sir, it’s not Dame Moya. It’s executive correspondence.
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, I appreciate that.
Ms Patrick: Donna Gilhooly, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes, so it is an answer by Royal Mail because, by now, of course, separation has occurred, hasn’t it?
Dame Greene: Yes. No, this is not Royal Mail, I don’t think. I’m not sure. It might be the Post Office.
Ms Patrick: That’s why I suggested, Dame Moya, if you had seen it, would you have agreed with it?
Dame Greene: No.
Ms Patrick: Thank you.
Sorry, sir, there was no implication –
Sir Wyn Williams: I just wanted to be clear, that’s all, about the sequence. I am now. Thank you.
Ms Patrick: Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Dame Moya. I have no other questions.
Mr Stevens: Sir, we have also received a request from Dame Moya’s recognised legal representative to take a point of clarification in re-examination. It’s a short point.
Mr Benwell: I’m aware we are under pressure of time. It’s just a very short point.
Sir Wyn Williams: Yes.
Questioned by Mr Benwell
Mr Benwell: Could we bring up Rob Wilson’s witness statement, please, which is WITN04210100, and if we could go to page 2 of that document, please.
While that comes up, Dame Moya, you’ll remember that Mr Stevens raised the question as to the entity which employed Rob Wilson and his role, and that that point has been come back to on a number of occasions.
Perhaps I could just take you to paragraph 3 of his statement, the first sentence. He says:
“In May 2002 I was appointed head of the POL CLT”, which I think is the Criminal Law Team.
Then, about five lines down in that same paragraph, he says:
“My main role was the responsibility for all criminal prosecutions brought on behalf of [Post Office Limited].”
Then perhaps we could scroll on to paragraph 4 of that same statement, please, on the next page, where Mr Wilson says:
“On 1 April 2012 [so at separation] I left [Post Office Limited] and moved into Royal Mail.”
So obviously we don’t have his employment contract but we do have his statement which says that, and I wanted to draw that to the Inquiry’s attention. Obviously, Dame Moya may want to comment on that but that may not be necessary.
Dame Greene: No, I –
Sir Wyn Williams: Well, I think I was aware of Mr Wilson’s statement and I am also aware that, during the course of the Inquiry, there has been a degree of looseness – if I can put it in that way – about precisely who worked for whom, when.
Mr Benwell: Thank you.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right, Mr Stevens. Is that it?
Mr Stevens: Yes. That’s all the questions, yes.
Sir Wyn Williams: I’m very grateful to you, Dame Moya, for making your witness statement and for giving evidence before me orally and answering a great many questions. Thank you again.
The Witness: Thank you, sir.
Sir Wyn Williams: Right. We will resume on Tuesday, Mr Stevens?
Mr Stevens: Yes, sir, thank you.
(4.23 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 9.45 am On Tuesday, 23 July 2024)