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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to commission a public inquiry into the Post Office.

The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry was set up in September 2020. My Hon. friend the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets announced to the House on 19 May that the government will put the ongoing Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry to a statutory footing on 1 June. This will ensure that the Chair, Sir Wyn Williams, has all the powers he needs to get to the bottom of what happened.

Following the change to a statutory Inquiry, the final report will now be delivered by Autumn 2022, so that Sir Wyn will have more time to determine what went wrong at the Post Office during this period to ensure the right lessons have been learnt and avoid the situation being repeated in the future.