Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions he has had with the Post Office Horizon Inquiry on the publication of evidence.

The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry is a statutory inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 and Sir Wyn Williams and the Inquiry team have the right to receive full access to the information and witnesses they require in order to investigate what went wrong at the Post Office. The Inquiry is entirely independent. Within its published terms of reference, Sir Wyn has the power to decide what to look at and which evidence to make public.

The Department for Business and Trade is the lead department on Post Office issues, so the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Justice has not engaged with the Inquiry on the publication of its evidence. It is important that the Government respect Sir Wyn’s independence, therefore it would not be appropriate for Government to comment further on the Inquiry.