Gareth Thomas

I want to take this opportunity again to pay tribute to the work of the Business and Trade Committee under my right hon. Friend’s chairmanship. As he has said, there has been a series of recommendations from his Committee, and I recognise that we have not always agreed with all those recommendations. For me, the question about whether to offer legal advice to Horizon shortfall scheme claimants has always been a finely balanced judgment. I say that because it has always been clear that the victims wanted a fast route to secure compensation without the involvement of lawyers, and the fact that so many have accepted the fixed-sum payment is an indication of that appetite. Nevertheless, I recognise that Sir Wyn Williams has given us a clear steer on that particular question, and we will consider that extremely carefully and very quickly. On the question of whether the Post Office should be stripped completely of responsibility for the Horizon shortfall scheme, there is no doubt that if we were starting afresh, the Post Office would have no responsibility for any of the compensation schemes. When I looked at the question of whether to start over again in the delivery of the compensation schemes and at who should be responsible for their delivery, I recognised that to change completely the processes as they had been set up would see further delay in getting compensation to the victims. I say gently to my right hon. Friend that Sir Wyn Williams has not said today that the Post Office should not be involved in the Horizon shortfall scheme’s delivery. We have been clear that we need to take away responsibility for the most complex cases, and we have set up the appeals scheme to do so. Given the numbers who have come forward with appeals on the Horizon shortfall scheme, I hope that we will be able to give confidence to those people that they will have a chance to get full and fair redress.