Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

David Jones Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). I, too, wish to speak in particular about amendment 7, tabled by the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse).

It is with a heavy heart that I am taking part in this debate. I was half minded not to do so, because now is not the time. The impact of the awful violence in Israel and Palestine on communities across the world cannot be underestimated, but the answer is not to debate the Bill right now. By all means let us have some space, some time: there have only been statements, and we have not had a chance to talk about it. By all means let us do that, but not this. It was unwise even to table the debate for this week, and on Monday I urged the Prime Minister to change his mind. In his response, he spoke about the importance of not undermining “community cohesion”. I politely suggest that if a Government do not want to undermine community cohesion, the last thing they should do is introduce a Bill such as this.

May I associate myself with the arguments advanced by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge)? What she said was exactly what members of my Jewish community have said to me. They are appalled that the Government are choosing to play politics at this time. The Bill was divisive at the best of times, and the fact is that this is the worst of times. That holds true regardless of what we may think of the Bill’s contents. The Liberal Democrats are on the record as registering our opposition to specific clauses on Second Reading, but I am here primarily to talk about the timing.

Amendment 7 cuts to the chase. It addresses the fact that on the face of the Bill, in clause 3, is a reference to the conflict in Israel and Palestine—a conflict that has cost thousands of innocent lives over the past three weeks, and a conflict in respect of which intense diplomacy is required. I am shocked that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, having toured the middle east and having understood the strength of feeling but also the sensitivities, have decided that this in any way helps them to do their very important jobs. Make no mistake: those leaders in the Arab world are watching what is happening here today, and I do not think that it shows us in the best light. If the Prime Minister backs two states and wants to take any sort of lead, he needs to mean it.

I am sorry to say that arranging for this Bill to be debated this week is not the mark of a statesman. It is a disgrace. It is a disgrace because this conflict is affecting families across the UK as well as those abroad. Maybe they are fearful of becoming the victims of hate crime. We have seen a dreadful rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia over the last three weeks. The Community Security Trust has recorded the highest ever number of antisemitic incidents across this 17-day period. Or maybe they are fearful for their family in the region. I have spoken many times already about my fears for my extended family in Gaza. Or maybe they are fearful for their loved ones who are being held hostage by Hamas. If we are going to engage in this conflict, we should speak about how to get those hostages freed.

Earlier this week, I and my party leader met some of those families, including the aunt of Ariel and Kfir, who are four years old and nine months old. I was disgusted to see a picture of four-year-old Ariel defaced with horns and Hitler imagery at a bus stop in Finchley this morning—an utterly grotesque act. I hope the perpetrators are caught and the full force of the law is applied. This hateful antisemitism has no place in our society, and that is not up for debate.

On Palestinians, we should be speaking about the situation on the ground in Gaza and how we can get aid in. Children in Gaza are writing their names on their hands so that if they are killed, they can be buried with their families. I attended a vigil yesterday where we mourned those innocent children whose lives have been needlessly lost. It is not right that innocent Palestinians are being held accountable for Hamas’s atrocities.

I have heard arguments, primarily from the Government Benches, that Hamas are purportedly telling people not to move and find safety, but that is not what I am hearing—certainly not from my own family. I find it deeply offensive for people to suggest that Hamas are giving my family orders. The reason people are not moving is that they are frail and cannot move, but even if they do, the south is being bombed too. The conversation has changed in Gaza. No longer do they ask, “Where do I go to be safe?”. The question now is, “Where do I go to die?”. So how are we to facilitate releasing those hostages? How are we to safeguard innocent civilian lives? It is through a humanitarian ceasefire. That is a position backed by the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, United States Secretary of State Blinken and—finally, it seems—the Government this morning.

What the House should be doing at this time is digging deep into our humanity and our compassion. It is a time for leadership, for soothing words and for calm to bring people together—all people, directly affected or not—and to demonstrate, by what we do here, how to let the light pierce into the darkness and despair. So I support amendment 7 wholeheartedly and I believe that this place can and should offer more than division.

Let me make my final point very clearly. I do not want something like this to drive a wedge between any Members in this House and our Jewish community. I stood with members of my Jewish community in Oxford in the first week of the attack and I grieved with them. We shed tears together. I stand shoulder to shoulder with them now. We all stand shoulder to shoulder with them now. I say to those Members who suggest that I should pick a side or, even worse, that by not voting with the Government today I am against peace: how dare they? I will tell them what I am on the side of. I am on the side of basic humanity. I am on the side of those who want to bring consensus. I am on the side of the Israeli community, the Palestinian community and the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities. This is a tragedy that affects the whole world, and I say to this Government: do better.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I support the amendments in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and wish to speak specifically to amendments 7 and 3.

This Bill was introduced pursuant to a Conservative manifesto commitment at the last general election,

“to ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries.”

It is important to note that the wording of that commitment is not country-specific. It is agnostic. But it is very clear from the debate thus far, most particularly on Second Reading but also today, that the measures contained in the Bill are aimed primarily at the BDS campaign that has for some two decades targeted the state of Israel. This is quite proper. Foreign policy in this country, as other hon. Members have said, should be determined by the Government of this country, not by local authorities or other public bodies.

The Bill is broadly drawn, except in one respect, which paradoxically robs it of its breadth. It contains a specific measure to prevent any attempt at a later date to modify its provisions in respect of the conduct of the Government of Israel in relation to the territory of Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the occupied Golan Heights. It is clear from the Secretary of State’s remarks on Second Reading that the principal mischief that the Government intend to target is the undoubted evil of antisemitism and antisemitic behaviour, which have been among the most regrettable—in fact, deplorable—consequences of the BDS campaign. Clamping down on antisemitism is obviously important. Indeed, it is essential. No one would dispute that it is a good thing. In fact, given current events in and close to Gaza—and, indeed, on the streets of London—doing everything possible to prevent it is very much a priority.

It is more than arguable that in the case of public bodies, there is a legislative vehicle for doing that already, in the shape of the Equality Act 2010, most particularly section 149, which imposes a “public sector equality duty” on such bodies, requiring them to pay

“due regard to the need to foster good relations between persons”

of different religions, ethnicities and nationalities. However, the Government have decided that the Equality Act is insufficient and have decided to go further by effectively outlawing the activities of the BDS movement in relation to Israel only, using this Bill as the vehicle. That is not a country-agnostic ambition of the sort envisaged in the manifesto commitment.

This is a broad Bill with one particularly anomalous element. As such, it throws up problems, which the amendments seek to rectify. Amendment 7 addresses the problem that arises under clause 3(5), which provides that

“The Secretary of State or the Minister for the Cabinet Office may, by regulations, specify a country or territory as one in relation to which section 1 does not apply.”—

in other words, permitting a public body to make a procurement or investment decision in such a way as to express political or moral disapproval of the conduct of a foreign state. Clause 3(7), however, goes on to provide that such regulations may not specify Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories or the occupied Golan Heights. The effect of clause 3(7), therefore, is to make it absolutely clear that the sole purpose of this Bill is to give total and unique protection to Israel from BDS activity.

I do not believe that it should be necessary to state that in the Bill. There may well be future circumstances in which it would be appropriate and desirable for public bodies to seek to express disapproval of the conduct of a foreign state. If any regulations were made permitting such conduct, they would self-evidently be done in circumstances in which they were approved of by the Government. However, excepting Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the occupied Golan Heights from the ministerial power to make such regulations is a very strange approach. In the first place, it is not, as I have said, country neutral, which it should be. The absence of neutrality may indeed cause offence to people from other countries around the world, not least those moderate Islamic states that are doing their very best at the moment to try to defuse the tension that has arisen in the middle east. Moreover, it creates an unacceptable equivalence between the status of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights, both of which are arguably illegally occupied and are certainly in the view of the Government in the case of the OPTs illegally settled, and that of the sovereign territory of Israel itself. That is a matter, I am afraid, that is likely to attract significant international criticism as it may well put the United Kingdom in breach of its obligations under UN Security Council resolution 2334. Being found to be in breach of that resolution is not something that the Government should be happy to risk.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Jones Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

15. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of investment zones for local (a) residents and (b) businesses.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

20. Whether the Government plan to extend investment zones to Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Mr Simon Clarke)]

Investment zones will turbocharge our plans for growth, spread opportunity and be transformational for towns and cities across the country. They will create new jobs and homes on targeted sites while maintaining strong environmental outcomes and keeping national green-belt protections in place. They will attract businesses and jobs through lower taxes and streamline planning rules to unlock commercial development. They will be created across the UK, including, we hope, in Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend and his colleagues from north Wales have already been absolutely passionate advocates of the potential of investment zones to benefit their region. He is quite right that we will need the co-operation of the Welsh Labour Government to unlock the full benefits of these zones. Discussions are ongoing with the Welsh Government, and I am delighted that I will have his support in making the case to their Minister for the Economy that Welsh Labour should embrace these zones.

[Mr David Jones]

Further to the last question, my right hon. Friend will know that north Wales is part of the same economic region as the north-west of England, and it is therefore essential that it should have the same economic advantages. Can he confirm that he will be engaging not only with the Welsh Government but with Welsh local authorities and with the North Wales Economic Ambition Board with a view to ensuring that north Wales gets investment zones at the earliest possible moment?

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right: we need to avoid there being a hard border between England and Wales, and indeed between Scotland and England, on these questions. It is vital that we make sure that we listen to the voice of business and local government as well as to MPs—my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) have already met me about this issue—to make sure that we avoid the disaster for north Wales of England proceeding with these zones and Wales not choosing to do so.

Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

David Jones Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I do not believe that we have cut local government out of the scheme, but of course I am committed to working with Lambeth, Southwark and other local authorities to ensure that individuals who are placed with sponsors are provided with all the support that local government is capable of providing and that local government gets the resource needed from central Government.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

Many older people, particularly the widowed, who live alone in larger homes with plenty of spare rooms will be keen to offer refuge to Ukrainian refugees. However, quite reasonably, they will need to be assured that it is entirely safe to do so. My right hon. Friend says the Government are streamlining the processes to security assess the status of Ukrainians arriving here. Could he give more details on those processes, please?

[Michael Gove]

As I mentioned earlier, in the context of the Home Secretary’s announcement last week, we want to make sure that anyone who applies, either using a Ukrainian passport or through a visa application centre, goes through basic security checks. As we know, it is a hard and difficult fact that there are malign actors in that part of eastern Europe who may wish to abuse the scheme, so we have to balance security against other considerations. The speed with which we can now turn around applications is a sign that we are prioritising compassion.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

David Jones Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

To conclude, I welcome the Lords amendments to the Bill, as they seem to recognise the great diplomatic and constitutional danger that this legislation represented in its original form, and the Liberal Democrats will oppose Government attempts to overturn them.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I will, if I may, focus on the amendments that seek to remove the entirety of part 5 of the Bill, which is its most controversial part because of the remark by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that it would breach international law. That remark proved as incendiary in the other place as it did in Brussels, and I can well understand the consternation that greeted it at the other end of the corridor. However, we must remember that the purpose of the Bill, as the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) pointed out, is straightforwardly to ensure that trade can flow freely within the internal market of the United Kingdom.

The internal market is specifically preserved and protected by the Act of Union 1800. Equal access to the internal market is therefore a constitutional right of the people of Northern Ireland, as, in due course, will be parity of treatment in the future trade relationship with the European Union. Pursuant to the Belfast-Good Friday agreement, that right should not be disturbed without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. However, considerable difficulties arise under the terms of the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol. It became increasingly clear during the negotiations with the European Union that the EU was intent on using the provisions of the withdrawal agreement as leverage in the negotiations on the future relationship. Those provisions could disrupt UK state aid policy and cause considerable friction in trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Part 5 of the Bill, and the forthcoming Taxation (Post-Transition Period) Bill, therefore seek quite properly to neutralise that potentially detrimental effect. However, it must be remembered, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) pointed out, that the powers in part 5 do not come into effect until such time as the Secretary of State makes a commencement order, and that can happen only with the approval of this House.

The Government have a positive duty to safeguard the integrity of the UK’s internal market, and to take whatever action is lawful in order to do that. The Bill gives the Government the power to take necessary action to neutralise the abusive implementation by the European Union of the provisions of the withdrawal agreement, including the Northern Ireland protocol. Furthermore, the same provisions safeguard against the potential breach of the Belfast-Good Friday agreement by ensuring that the constitutional rights set out in article 6 of the Act of Union are not infringed.

There can be no doubt as to the constitutional propriety of Parliament enacting these provisions. Parliament is sovereign; that is the fundamental principle of the constitution of this country. Moreover, and importantly, it is a principle that is specifically reasserted in section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, the statute that brought the withdrawal agreement into domestic law, notwithstanding the direct effect provisions of the withdrawal agreement.

It is to be hoped that a free trade agreement will shortly be concluded. If it is, there will be no need to trigger the powers in part 5 of the Bill, but as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, this Bill acts as a safety net. It is therefore clearly in the national interest that these provisions be reinstated in the Bill, and I urge hon. Members to vote accordingly this evening.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

My 10-year-old son asked me what we were debating this evening. I confessed it was Brexit, to which he replied, “Not again! Haven’t you been doing that for a while?”. I tried to come up with an analogy to explain why we are still doing this, and I compared it with the Apollo programme, which had a commitment, an obvious mission—to land a man on the moon—a clear tactical goal with a strategic objective. Our 2016 referendum could not have been more different. Think back to the question that we were asked: “Should the UK remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”. In the case of the moon landing, the difference between success and failure was clear to absolutely everybody, but what “leave” meant was never formally articulated or agreed.

The world watched with trepidation as Apollo 11 completed its mission, targeting not just the moon, but a specific place on its surface. Years later, a global audience would witness another journey into the unknown. This time, it was Brexit that was given the green light to launch—but without our formally agreeing a specific destination. There was a vast spectrum to land in, and four years later, we continue to dissect the issue in detail. Now, with talks going down to the wire, we have to think the previously unthinkable and prepare for the possibility of no deal. To be clear, I absolutely respect the result of the referendum; I care, though, about where this project lands, and that is what we are discussing today.

If we step back from the details of the battle, we begin to appreciate the impact a no-deal Brexit will have on global Britain. The world order that we helped to create after 1945 and globalised after the fall of the Soviet Union is in decline. Threats are diversifying and becoming more complex at the very time that we are witnessing a decline in western resolve—in what we believe in, stand for, and are willing to defend. As the UK assumes the G7 presidency and hosts COP26, we will have the chance to stand tall with a new White House Administration, invigorated, and the chance to repair our frail world order and contest the rise of authoritarian state and non-state actors, which for too long have been given free rein to pursue their own agendas.

Yet here we are, seemingly willing to retreat from the world stage, potentially distancing ourselves from the continent and, indeed, the US by entertaining the prospect of no deal only a week after we cut our overseas aid budget. Our soft power, arguably the most influential in the world, has already been bruised by the UK’s willingness, however good our intentions, to flout international law by breaching the withdrawal agreement. Indeed, we are here today to put back the offending part 5, which was removed by the Lords because of the wider implication that the UK was willing to breach international law.

I am pleased that the Government intend to remove clauses 44, 45 and 47 in the event that a trade deal is confirmed, but it would be an abject failure of statecraft to leave the EU with no deal. If more time is required, so be it. We will live with the consequences for years—indeed, decades. We must summon the political courage to get this right. The west is about to regroup. Our voice, our experience and our leadership are needed on the global stage.

Horizon Settlement: Future Governance of Post Office Ltd

David Jones Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. She uses a great description.

We then come on to the issue of compensation.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the issue of Ministers. Of course the Post Office has a non-executive director appointed by the Government. One must assume that that non-executive director is reporting to Ministers. Would that not be an interesting topic for the inquiry?

[Mr Jones]

Yes, and I was going come on to that, because I would love to know who those non-executive directors have been over the years and what they said to Ministers. If I had been the Minister, I would have had that person in and scrutinised what was going on, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would. That would certainly have applied in the past few months, given the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent defending the indefensible.

In December, the Post Office agreed a settlement worth £57 million. Unfortunately, most of that has been swallowed up in the fees and the after-the-event insurance that the litigants had to afford. I do not criticise the lawyers—the people who funded this—because without them we would not have got justice, but that leaves about £15,000 for each of the successful people in the class action. We must recall that my constituent has lost more than half a million pounds, and the Post Office is settling cases outside this settlement for £300,000. What has to happen now is that a scheme has to be set up to compensate individuals properly. We must remember that £15 million of those costs were legal costs for pursuing the case, and £4 million of that is VAT, which will go straight back to the Government. Over the time that Paula Vennells was at the Post Office, she earned nearly £5 million, which just shows how the individuals who have been affected are not having happy retirements and peace of mind, but have been put through this system. The issue is clear to me: the figures that are being paid out now privately need a scheme.

I wish to make a couple of further points before I finish. The first is that the National Federation of SubPostmasters needs winding up now. It is not independent, nobody joins it—sub-postmasters are auto-enrolled. It is basically an arm of the Post Office and is paid for by the Post Office. Surely if it is going to be an independent voice for sub-postmasters, it should be that.

If anyone saw the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee hearing last week, they will have seen the chief executive, who could not answer on how many of his members had been affected by Horizon or what his organisation had done about it. I will tell the House exactly what it did: nothing. In Tom Brown’s case it just said that the Post Office must be right. The organisation is a sham and it needs to be wound up now. We need an independent organisation to represent sub-postmasters—including through the recognition of the Communication Workers Union, which some people are members of—that can actually be an independent voice for sub-postmasters.

The other thing that I, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire and James Arbuthnot did was to take some cases to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, because there are people who have been found guilty and in some cases jailed unfairly. I pay tribute to that body, which took the issue seriously and took on a number of cases. It has stayed those cases—quite rightly, in my opinion—until the outcome of the civil litigation. It is important that those cases are now moved on and considered, because there are miscarriages of justice in some of those cases that need to be put right very quickly.

The right of the Post Office to take forward its own prosecutions needs to be removed. This issue goes back many centuries in the Post Office’s history. When Tom Brown asked whether he could get the police or the Crown Prosecution Service involved in looking at the evidence against him, he was told no. Likewise, it was the same for everyone else. Removing that right is something that the Government could do straight away, because there is no adequate oversight of how cases are being prosecuted. In Judge Fraser’s summing up, he described the contract and the way in which the Post Office acted as

“capricious or arbitrary ways which would not be unfamiliar to a mid-Victorian factory-owner”,

and said that the Post Office appears to

“conduct itself as though it is answerable only to itself.”

That is the case: it was answerable only to itself, with little or no insight in terms of oversight from Government.

Let me say what needs to be put right now. I have already mentioned that compensation needs to be put in place. We now need a full independent inquiry, and in a response in Prime Minister’s questions on 26 February, the Prime Minister indicated that that might be the case, calling the issue a “scandal”. In response to Lord Arbuthnot in the other place on 5 March, Lord Callanan said that the issue would be under consideration. We need as a matter of urgency an inquiry to cover not just what has gone on but how we can improve the situation for the future, and it has to be independent of Government. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee is looking into the matter, and I give credit to it for doing that, but we need some recommendations about what went on in the past. I am sorry, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley said, we need to expose who did what. I have to say, if in some cases what I would argue was criminal activity took place, people have to be prosecuted. Given their involvement, they certainly need to be removed from any public bodies on which they currently serve.

The Minister’s predecessors have not been good at looking into this issue. They have not asked the right questions—they have not asked questions of their officials or the Post Office. The Minister now has a chance to put this right. I know that he spoke to Alan Bates yesterday, and I know that he is hiding behind the court case in terms of compensation—his officials are saying that they cannot get any more. I have to say: please do not do that. It is now time for bold action. If we do not take action, this injustice will continue.

Let me finish with this: my constituent Tom Brown should be enjoying a happy, well-funded retirement, but he is not. He is still a proud man, as I said—he is a man who has not lost his dignity—but he is living in social housing with his son, and that is not his fault; it is down to people such as Paula Vennells and the board at the Post Office, and the failure and cover-ups that have been perpetrated by individuals. The Government, who should have stood up for him, have turned a blind eye.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) on securing the debate. I have the privilege of representing Mr Alan Bates, who was the lead claimant in the proceedings that were settled in December. If it had not been for his tenacity and that of others, the consequences would have been that the wrongdoings of the Post Office and Fujitsu would have gone undetected and the reputations of many hundreds of completely decent, innocent people would have been completely destroyed without any hope of being repaired.

It is clear from the judgment delivered last year by Mr Justice Fraser that the Horizon system was, at all relevant times, defective. It is also clear that the Post Office and, by extension, its directors and, by further extension, its Government-appointed directors must have been aware that the system was defective. Notwithstanding that, for over 20 years, the Post Office stubbornly and aggressively continued to assert that the system was fit for purpose. Many innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses lost their livelihoods, some of them went bankrupt, some of them were prosecuted and, indeed, some of them were sent to prison. It is an absolutely scandalous tale.

It is, indeed, a credit to Mr Nick Read, the new chief executive of the Post Office, that his intervention helped achieve a settlement to the legal dispute last December, but that settlement cannot be the end of the matter. The Government cannot simply regard the settlement as putting the Horizon issue to bed. As other hon. Members have said, after costs are taken into account, the settlement sums for those 500-plus litigants will be paltry. The Government have a duty to further compensate the sub-postmasters who have been so appallingly treated by a Government-owned company.

I will be brief, because I know others wish to speak, but there is a vehicle that could be used to pay that compensation. The Post Office operates a suspense account for unallocated money and, given the history we have heard today, I suggest there is rather a lot of unallocated money in the Post Office.

According to a 2015 report by Second Sight, unreconciled balances for the 2014 financial year were approximately £96 million in respect of Bank of Ireland ATMs and approximately £66 million in respect of Santander. Bank of Ireland and Santander are just two of approximately 170 so-called client accounts operated by the Post Office. The question of how much has been going into the Post Office’s profit and loss account from unreconciled balances would clearly have to be a matter for further inquiry. However, it is surely a source available to repay the costs of the claimants in these court proceedings.

To summarise, the Government owe a significant debt, both financial and moral, to the wronged sub-postmasters as a consequence of the deplorable conduct of those responsible for the direction of the Post Office, including non-executive directors appointed by the Government. Ministers should ensure that the debt is discharged as quickly and as fully as possible. Although it is pleasing to hear assurances from Ministers that they recognise the Post Office needs to do more to strengthen its relationship with sub-postmasters and to regain public trust, it would be even more pleasant to hear they are making arrangements to compensate the claimants as quickly and as fully as possible.

Finally, I fully support the calls for an independent inquiry, which the Government have a moral obligation to deliver.