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+ Kelly Tolhurst MP
aoe Department for Business, Energy &
- Industrial Strategy
Department for 1 Mctora Sweet
Business, Energy SW/1H OE
& Industrial Strategy
Gill Furniss MP w
www.gov.uk
House of Commons
London Our ref:
SW1A OAA Your ref:
July 2019
Thank you for your letter of 24 June to the Secretary of State requesting a meeting to
discuss the ongoing group litigation Alan Bates and Others v Post Office Limited. I have
been asked to respond as this matter falls within my ministerial portfolio. I appreciate
you drawing the issues discussed by the APPG to our attention and I will be happy to
meet with you as soon as diaries permit after the summer recess.
You will appreciate that while this litigation rests with the courts my scope to comment
on the specific issues that you raise is very limited, but I can nevertheless reassure you
that I take this case extremely seriously and I am monitoring it closely. I continue to
believe the courts are the right place to hear the issues being raised and I hope that the
litigation will assist in the resolution of these long-standing issues between some
postmasters and the Post Office so that postmasters with claims can obtain a remedy if
the court finds there is validity to those claims.
I can, however, provide a factual update on developments since our last meeting on 26
March. Following the judgment on 15 March on the first “Common Issues’ trial
(concerning the terms and interpretation of the contract between postmasters and Post
Office) Post Office submitted an application for permission to appeal, which is currently
with the Court of Appeal. The second “Horizon Issues’ trial, concerning the function
and reliability of the Horizon Point of Sale system, concluded on 2 July with the
judgment expected in September or October. A further trial has been scheduled for
March 2020.
On the wider issue of the relationship between Post Office and its postmasters, I
believe that postmasters are the backbone of the Post Office, and their branches are
the backbone of communities across the country. This is why the Government
committed to safeguarding the Post Office network backed up by over £2 billion of
investment since 2010 and it is why Post Office is engaged in a programme to improve
how it works with postmasters and to ensure they are fairly rewarded for the services
they provide.
This programme includes a significant increase in banking transaction fees for
postmasters from October 2019 - as a gesture of goodwill this is being applied three
months before the new Banking Framework between Post Office and banks comes into
force - and a comprehensive review of postmaster remuneration. Post Office Ltd aims
to ensure that running a post office remains an attractive proposition while recognising
that in today’s market services must be combined with a successful wider retail offer to
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be sustainable. Progress on this work and other issues of mutual interest will continue
to be discussed at the new quarterly working group between the National Federation of
Subpostmasters (NFSP), Post Office and Government under my chairmanship.
I look forward to meeting with you in due course.
KELLY TOLHURST MP
Minister for Small Business, Consumers & Corporate Responsibility