Post Office

(asked on 16th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the oral contribution the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 10 March 2020, Official Report, column 43WH, what steps he is taking to challenge Post Office Ltd leadership on its engagement with sub-postmasters.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 24th March 2020

The Government believes that Post Office Limited’s commitments for cultural and organisational change following the mediation are of the upmost importance and is determined to see them delivered.

I have personally challenged the Post Office CEO and Chair to strengthen their relationship with postmasters and take onboard the lessons learnt through the litigation. I will continue to raise this issue and test progress during my regular meetings with the CEO going forward. Officials will also monitor progress at regular meetings with Post Office officials.

BEIS has established and chairs a quarterly working group with the National Federation for Subpostmasters and the Post Office. This is a forum for discussing how the relationship between the Post Office and postmasters can be improved and highlighting any concerns that postmasters may have. This is a further forum where we will test whether progress is being made.

The Government is also committed to establishing an independent review to look at these issues further. We will announce more details in due course. We will ensure that any review does not undermine the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s work or the separate Director of Public Prosecution’s consideration.

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