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In a report yesterday the Commons Business and Trade Committee calls again for legally binding timeframes on Government at each stage of processing claims under the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme – backed by financial penalties awarded to the claimant if the deadlines are missed.

• Read the Full Report (HTML)
• Read the Full Report (PDF)
• Inquiry: Post Office Horizon scandal: fast and fair redress
• Business and Trade Committee

In November Government told the Committee’s inquiry that putting in place hard deadlines with penalties might have unintended consequences, and that they were finding alternative ways to speed up the process. 

But as of November, just £499 million of the £1.8 billion set aside for financial redress has been paid out across the four redress schemes, with 72% of the budget for redress still not paid.  

In the case of the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, 14% of those who applied before the original 2020 deadline have still not settled their claims. 

The Committee found that the “schemes are so poorly designed that the application process is akin to a second trial for victims” with an excessive burden placed on claimants to answer complex requests for information about their losses in the scandal, and delays processing those requests and disclosures back from the Post Office.  

On the scheme administrators’ side, legal advice has been extensive and costly. To date, Post Office Ltd has spent £136 million on legal fees relating to the redress schemes, including £82 million to just one firm, Herbert Smith Freehills, for services including their legal advice on the HSS and Overturned Convictions Scheme. The overall legal bill is equivalent to 27% of redress paid to date. 

Of that, £67 million was costs to administer the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, a figure equal to 27 per cent of actual redress paid out and amounting to £26,600 per claim.  

Victims however have been offered no legal advice up-front in submitting their claims, despite being required to grapple complex legal concepts about the amount of redress they were owed. Many years had passed and they no longer had access to the financial records of where Horizon’s systemic errors had occurred.  Claimants’ lawyers attested that when claimants do get legal advice, their offers of financial redress double. The Committee says it is “imperative” now that claimants are offered legal advice up front, at no cost to themselves but paid for by the scheme administrators.  

Chair's comment

Chair of the BTC Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP said: 

“Years on from the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, thousands of Post Office Horizon victims still don’t have the redress to which they’re entitled for the shatter and ruin of their lives.

“Ours is a nation that believes in fair play and the rule of law. Yet victims told us that seeking the redress to which they’re entitled is akin to a second trial. Payments are so slow that people are dying before they get justice. But the lawyers are walking away with millions.

“This is quite simply, wrong, wrong, wrong.

“The government has made important steps forward. Almost half a billion pounds of redress payments are now out the door, the budget has gone up to being fully funded and the Post Office was ordered to write to everyone who might be owed something for what happened to them. 

“But we can’t go on like this. Justice delayed is justice denied. So today, we’re setting out a practical, common-sense plan to reboot the redress system.

“Victims should have upfront legal advice to help make sure they get what’s fair. We need hard deadlines for government lawyers to approve the claims with financial penalties for taking too long. Crucially, we need the Post Office, which caused this scandal in the first place, taken out of the picture.”

The Committee calls on Government now to:  

1. Remove the Post Office from administering any of the redress schemes. 
2. Up-front legal advice should be offered to claimants and paid for by the schemes’ administrators for all schemes. 
3. Introduce binding timeframes for scheme administrators at each individual stage of each scheme, with financial penalties passed on to the claimant if these deadlines are not met. 
4. Appoint an independent adjudicator for each scheme and empower them to provide directions and case management to ensure claimants move through the process swiftly. 
5. Provide clear, strong instructions to taxpayer-funded lawyers to maximise the speed of redress, eliminate legal delays, enhance the benefit of doubt given to claimants, and publish the costs spent on lawyers for the public and Parliament to see.