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RECEIVED
06 JAN 2025
Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance
Kelly Tolhurst MP 4% January 2020
Minister for Postal Affairs
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
1 Victoria St.
LONDON, SW1H OET
Reference: Alan Bates & Others and Post Office Limited, Judgment (No 6) “Horizon Issues”
Dear Minister
You will recall that I last wrote to you on 30 April 2019 following the handing down of the
Common Issues judgment, enclosing a copy of said judgment for your consideration.
From it, you would have seen that the judgment was utterly condemning of Post Office Limited,
with references to its poor management littering the document and being far too many to repeat
here. You were also aware that at that time, Post Office Limited had chosen to apply to the Court
of Appeal to contest the findings of that judgment. A judgment which, on 22 November 2019, the
Court of Appeal upheld, having dismissed all 26 grounds of the Application [copy enclosed].
Then, on 16 December 2019, the release of the Horizon Issues judgment [copy enclosed] clearly
showed that Post Office Limited’s Horizon system had never been fit for purpose since the day it
had been launched. These further 418 pages reveal that Post Office Limited had little or no control
over its Horizon system and were again accompanied by an additional catalogue of disastrous
management decisions and failures.
So with nearly 1000 pages of the most revealing and damning court tested evidence of the failures
of Post Office Limited and its Horizon system over the years, the claimant group attended
mediation talks which began on 27 November 2019. We attended purely because of the legal
advice we were given as to the underlying economics of the case which, due to the way the Group
Litigation had to be funded, the claimant group were left with little choice but to accept the
miserly £57.75m offered. And in accordance with the terms of the Settlement Agreement
following that mediation, BEIS would have had sight of that Agreement and will be well aware that
the greater majority of the £57.75m went to pay the cost to the claimant group of bringing the
litigation.
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Yet because of the tyrannical conduct of Post Office Limited over the years, unchecked by a
Government who is the sole shareholder of Post Office Limited, the claimant group has had no
option other than to pursue litigation in order to have its evidence tested by the courts. And as
you pointed out to me in your 17 June 2019 letter, when you identified that this matter lays within
your ministerial portfolio, and you stated ‘It is important that the court process be allowed to run its
course in order to finally resolve those issues.’ This the court has done, and the court has now
resolved that not only was Post Office Limited operating a Horizon system which was ‘not fit for
purpose’ but that Post Office Limited was fully aware of the condition of the system; yet despite
this fact being known to it, was then allowed to contest that very point in the court, presumably
with your department's blessing. Basically Post Office Limited has abused the use of public money
to try and keep the truth about its conduct and the appalling state of its Horizon system covered-
up, and that cannot be right. Going forward, I fully expect many MPs will be asking whether there
has been misconduct in public office or there is even worse yet to be uncovered.
There is no doubt that our almost 1000 pages of court tested evidence is clear testament to the
disastrous condition Post Office Limited is in, and has been in for many years. And it is because of
the nonsense spouted in such dismissive responses by Ministers to real concerns, that it has been
left to the claimant group to expose the truth. You only have to compare the real facts that were
established in the court to demolish such claims that formed part of a letter to me dated 7
December 2010 from Ed Davey, who at that time, was the Minister for Postal Affairs:-
‘recognise that the core of the JFSA's concerns relates to the Horizon system to which you
attribute the financial discrepancies and shortages which have led to a number of
subpostmasters having their contracts terminated and subsequent court action. However POL
continues to express full confidence in the integrity and robustness of the Horizon system and
also categorically states that there is no remote access to the system or to individual branch
terminals which would allow accounting records to be manipulated in any way. In addition, I
understand that all system activity, down to the individual key stroke, is also recorded into a
separate vaulted transaction file with every record encrypted and written to the log and with
each record having a unique incrementing sequence number. This log is retained ona
separate server independent of Horizon for at least seven years, cannot be altered in any way
and all access to it is securely controlled. This approach is consistent with that of banking
systems and provides a fully secure audit file which can show all system activity in a
particular branch,’
But by far the most shocking consequence of the failure of successive governments to address the
responsibilities they have for Post Office Limited, is the disastrous effect it has had on the lives of
the claimant subpostmaster group, and who knows how many others. Purely because of the way,
either intentionally or by ignorance, successive Ministers have failed to carry out their duty to
actively oversee and manage Post Office Limited.
Your June 2019 letter also states that ‘While publicly owned, Post Office Ltd operates as an
independent, commercial business.’ This is a statement that in various forms has been the excuse
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given over the years to MPs, the media and to claimants in the group froma string of Ministers
with the responsibility for Post Office Limited. It seems to have been the template response when
trying to ‘duck the issue’ of not having got to grips with the enormity of the problem that dealing
with the conduct of Post Office Limited has been, and still is, for successive governments.
By way of example is an extract from a letter to me in May 2010, again from Ed Davey:-
Since 2001, when the Royal Mail (which includes Post Office Ltd (POL)) was set up asa public
limited company with the Government as its only shareholder, Government has adopted an
arm's length relationship with the company so that it has the commercial freedom to run its
business operations without interference from the shareholder.
However, it would seem Ministers have always had a statutory duty to proactively manage Post
Office Limited, a fact which was recently brought to my attention having been extracted from a
range of Government research papers from which the following was observed:-
¢ Post Office Limited (POL) is a Public Corporation, identified by the National Audit Office as
an Arm’s Length Body (ALB) of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(BEIS).
¢ HMTreasury owns United Kingdom Government Investments (UKGI). The Secretary of
State for BEIS owns POL’s shares and the UKGI is charged with managing POL on behalf of
BEIS.
¢ The Permanent Secretary for BEIS also acts as its Accounting Officer (AO).
e The Secretary of State for BEIS is ultimately accountable to Parliament for the overall
effectiveness and efficiency of POL as an ALB and is charged to exercise meaningful and
commensurate oversight of that ALB's strategy, financial management, performance and
risk management, but may delegate such duties to the AO.
¢ _BEIS is expected to play an active role in the governance, financial management, risk
management and performance monitoring of POL and is responsible for managing the
relationship with POL on behalf of the Minister, as Parliament has a duty to hold the
Minister accountable for all the policies, decisions and actions of POL.
So, from the list above, and quite contrary to the arm’s length management of POL mantra that so
many Ministers like to chant, Ministers and BEIS should have been considerably more proactive in
delving into the problems that individuals, the media and MPs have been raising with the
department ever since Horizon was introduced.
The department cannot state it was not aware of any issues or concerns, as there is considerable
correspondence in reply from Ministers and the department praising Post Office Limited’s
management, the robustness of Horizon and the lack of third party access to the system. All of
which the court has shown are total misnomers, but it has been the claimant group that so far has
had to pay for the work that Government should have undertaken. That is why the claimant group
is now seeking to recover the cost from Government and in particular BEIS, for having to bring the
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litigation in order to provide the evidence of the numerous instances of mistreatment and
mismanagement of Subpostmasters by Post Office Limited.
A payment request for the costs so far incurred by the claimant group in connection with the
provision of nearly a 1000 pages of court tested evidence relating to the failures of Post Office
Limited and its Horizon System is enclosed for your consideration.
Alan Bates
Encl.:
- Payment Request
- Decision “Court of Appeal Refusal of Post Office Limited’s Application to Appeal”
- Judgment (No.6) “Horizon Issues” and Appendixes
Alan Bates
jfsa.orguk
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Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance
Kelly Tolhurst MP 34 January 2020
Minister for Postal Affairs
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
1 Victoria St.
LONDON, SW1H OET
Request for Payment:- Recovery of Costs incurred by the Claimant group in respect of the
High Court Litigation, Alan Bates & Others and Post Office Limited
Repayment of costs incurred to date by the £46,843,853
claimant group in connection with the provision
of near 1000 pages of court tested evidence
relating to the failures of Post Office Limited
and its Horizon System.
Fully itemised and detailed breakdown can be
provided upon request.
Total Nowdue: £46,843,853
Payment should be made by electronic transfer to the client account of the claimants’ solicitors,
the details of which are:
Address: Freeths Client Account
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Account No: I
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