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The government let bureaucracy get in the way of redress for wronged subpostmasters, Kemi Badenoch has told the inquiry into the Post Office scandal.
The new Tory leader said that during her time as business secretary, she and former postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake “wanted to get the money out there” but were constantly given reasons why they could not by officials.
In a tetchy appearance before the Horizon IT inquiry, said: “We had briefings on the issue with officials, and it was quite clear to me that we were allowing bureaucracy to get in the way of redress too much of the time.
“Kevin (Hollinrake) and I wanted to get the money out there, and we were always given a reason why we couldn’t.”
Explaining why she felt bureaucracy was getting in the way of redress, Mrs Badenoch told the probe on Monday: “I feel that there is often too much bureaucracy in the way of getting things done, because people are worried about the process.
“They are worried about: if things go wrong, they’ll be on the hook for that.
“So they carry out lots of checks and balances well beyond what I think is required in order to deliver the right outcome.”
Questioned by counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC on who allowed bureaucracy to get in the way of redress, Mrs Badenoch replied: “Well, the government machine.
“I think I remember asking a question like: ‘Why can’t we just give them the money?”’
Mrs Badenoch continued: “Then I’d be told ‘there could be a judicial review, and the Treasury has these value for money requirements, if you don’t meet them then you might end up having to go to court’ – so I just kept trying to find a way through.”
Ms Badenoch also claimed briefings from civil servants are “too vanilla” and that she was not often given the “unvarnished truth”. She said officials are nervous about putting their true thoughts down on paper, in case they are subject to Freedom of Information requests or used as evidence in inquiries.
Ms Badenoch was also confronted about her decision to sack Post Office chairman Henry Staunton, a decision which was leaked to the press before he was informed.
She said she was “very angry” about the leak, adding that “leaks of this type debilitate government, and lead to inaccurate reporting”.
And she said it was “extremely disappointing” that it took an ITV drama about the Post Office scandal to get the government to accelerate compensation for wrongly convicted postmasters.
She said: “I was not expecting the documentary [Mr Bates vs the Post Office] in January, which helped speed things along.
“It suddenly turned it from a value-for-money question to a public perception question.”
She added: “It is not enough to do the right thing. You have to be seen to be doing the right thing.”
Ms Badenoch added that arguments over funding for the payouts was already underway in government, but that the drama “changed the priority” of the issue to “something we needed to solve now”.
Before her evidence, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the Post Office’s corporate culture is at the root of the Horizon scandal, but insisted the organisation is still “an incredibly important institution in national life”.
Mr Reynolds told the inquiry he takes “ultimate responsibility” at governmental level for full, fair and prompt redress for subpostmasters.
He said there had been a “significant increase in the pace at which compensation has been paid” since the general election, and told the probe he did not believe it had been “at the cost of fair or accurate compensation being made”.
Commenting on the culture within the Post Office in his witness statement to the inquiry, he said: “It is clear that the Post Office’s corporate culture is at the root of this scandal, and I want to make sure the system works for subpostmasters.
“I am supportive of a reform agenda which seeks to turn this ambition into reality.”
Lead campaigner and former subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates previously told MPs he wanted the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) to set a deadline of March next year for redress payments for claimants who took the Post Office to the High Court between 2017 and 2019 – also known as the GLO scheme.
Asked if he could commit to the deadline set by Sir Alan, Mr Reynolds said: “The position I’m in is I’m trying to make sure people get redress for a horrendous scandal… at a minimum, I don’t want to do anything that makes that injustice even worse.
“And the worry about a deadline – can you imagine a situation where, for whatever reason, a claim has not come in?
“I think it will be unconscionable to say that that is not going to be considered.”
More than 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their accounts.
Hundreds are still awaiting compensation despite the previous government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.
