Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“As the banks continue to close branches, we are keen to support the Post Office to improve and develop the banking services it provides. Working with our Treasury colleagues, we will host joint discussions on this issue with the Post Office and the banking sector in the coming months. Above all else, we know the Post Office needs stability, which we are committed to providing. We are backing that commitment with over £500 million investment during this Parliament, including up to £136 million in this financial year to invest in new technology and replace Horizon. Horizon should have gone long ago. Instead, it will be many months yet before it is replaced. Fujitsu should only be part of the Post Office’s grim past, not its current and immediate future.”
“We need a Post Office that not only preserves its role in providing vital services to communities, but embraces the needs of modern Britain. The challenges are significant. Many branches are not profitable for the postmasters running them. Average weekly customer sessions have declined by 34% since 2007, and the shift to online services continues. While some services, such as parcel drop-offs and banking transactions, are growing, others, such as Government services, have seen significant decline. But we are also seeing innovation across the network. Drop and collect branches are being rolled out to meet the growing demand for parcel services. Over 160 banking hubs are now operational, with a commitment to roll out 350 by the end of the Parliament.”
“We want a Post Office network that the public uses, values and, above all, trusts. We want branches to be visible on the high street, in rural and urban areas, and in all communities, offering a wide range of in-person services. I do not believe that people are ideologically wedded to a smaller or bigger Post Office; they just want a Post Office that works for them, their businesses and their communities. Our preferred approach is for the overall size and shape of the Post Office network to remain the same so that we minimise the impact on communities. We want to strengthen branches to modernise them and expand what they do. There are, though, a range of strong views on the Post Office network, so we will carefully consider all the views put to us about its future.”
“Twelve months ago, we inherited a Post Office in crisis—declining financial sustainability, unstable leadership, a network struggling to maintain services, and a reputation shattered by the Horizon scandal and its appalling treatment of sub-postmasters, as Sir Wyn Williams’s first report last week underlined only too clearly. This Government are determined to strengthen the Post Office network, and today’s Green Paper begins a national dialogue on the future of the Post Office so that we can create a modern, resilient and financially sustainable organisation. We recognise that the Post Office, just like other postal services around the world, faces significant challenges that are driven in no small part by changing consumer habits fuelled by the digital transition, changing high streets and a changing economy.”
“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the Green Paper that we are publishing today on the future of the Post Office. Post offices have stood as a cornerstone of British national life for generations, serving constituents in every part of the UK. They are a lot more than just places to send letters or collect parcels; they are hubs of economic and social activity. They are a lifeline to small businesses, provide access to essential services, including everyday banking services, and are a critical part of our high streets. They also have a unique role in rural areas, particularly permanent branches, and act as the beating heart of communities. In recent years, however, the need for change has become clear.”
“In the longer term, it may well be possible to make serious and sustained governance changes. I have a genuinely open mind on that question and will look carefully at the views we receive on it in the Green Paper.”
“Lady that difficult decisions had to be made in the Budget because of the financial situation that we inherited, but we have taken a range of decisions to steady the network. I am sure that she is grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the additional finances put aside to invest in the future of the Post Office. The hon. Lady quite rightly underlined the broader point that Fujitsu has a moral obligation to contribute towards the cost of the scandal. As I have said, we need to wait for the final report by Sir Wyn Williams to understand the full sense of Fujitsu’s culpability. Lastly, on mutualisation, as the hon. Lady alluded to, we think it right to concentrate in the short term on prioritising the financial and operational stability of the Post Office, given its significant challenges.”
“We are clear that the Post Office could offer more if the banks are willing to work with it. The successful completion of the banking framework negotiations was an encouraging sign in that regard. As I set out in my opening remarks, we are, alongside Treasury colleagues, determined to sit down with the Post Office and the banks to see what more we can do together. There is a commitment to 350 banking hubs over the lifetime of this Parliament, but if we can improve the way in which the banks work with the Post Office, we could see a much more significant role for the Post Office in the provision of banking services on far more high streets up and down the UK. On national insurance contributions, I gently say to the hon.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for encouraging sub-postmasters and anyone who is interested in the future of the Post Office to contribute their views to the Green Paper. As the hon. Lady rightly set out, and as I hope I underlined in my statement—the Green Paper is certainly very clear on this—we think that branches up and down the country are a vital part of our country’s economic and social fabric, and we are determined to strengthen the post office network so that they can play a continuing and even more effective role in our economic and social lives. The hon. Lady rightly underlined the significance of banking services going forward. As an aside, she mentioned the decline of other traditional post offices—letter volumes have halved since 2011. That helps to underline the significance of banking to the future of the Post Office.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend about the even greater role that banks could play on our high streets by working with the Post Office. It is one area that Post Office senior management has identified as key to the Post Office’s commercial future. We have set aside significant sums of money to invest in new technology to make it easier to work with the banks and do even more. I hope that banks and the financial services community will recognise that they have a considerable opportunity to do more in providing services to all our constituents by working with the Post Office. I look forward to sitting down with the Post Office and the financial services industry, alongside Treasury colleagues, to see whether we can take advantage of that opportunity.”
“Whenever an individual post office changes, I recognise that it can be unsettling for local communities; there is always an appetite for that branch to be put back in place as quickly as possible. It is therefore important that whenever such a change is contemplated, the Post Office moves quickly to engage with local communities, including the hon. Member who represents the community. On financing, we have set aside at least £500 million over this Parliament to invest in the Post Office. More than half of the network is loss-making; not enough was being provided to the Post Office to fund the network, which is why we increased the funding to cover the loss-making part of it last year. We have done so again this year and will continue to do so.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her welcome for the Green Paper. She rightly underlines the significance of the Post Office, particularly to the digitally excluded, to the elderly and to people in rural areas. Given the other part of my ministerial brief, which is on small businesses, I recognise just how important the Post Office is to small businesses up and down the UK. The hon. Lady also underlined the significance of banking services for the Post Office. I hope I have made it very clear today that we think that there is an opportunity to go even further to bring more banking services to all our communities through the Post Office. The hon. Lady asked about what happens when individual post office changes are being contemplated. A set of consultation arrangements has been in place for some time, and we are not seeking to change it.”
“I commend my hon. Friend for championing the Post Office branches in his constituency. He rightly underlines the importance of branches in rural communities; they have an essential role in communities up and down the UK. As my hon. Friend will recognise, I have some history in the area of mutualisation. I am sympathetic to mutuals; I do think that it is important that we address the immediate challenges that the Post Office faces in its financial and operational sustainability before we contemplate long-term changes. There are risks with mutualisation, so we need to consider the pros as well as the cons before making any long-term change, but that is why the Green Paper is important: it will allow that debate to begin.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right that the reputation of the Post Office has taken a huge hit as a result of the Post Office scandal, and it will take a long time for trust to return. There is a series of steps that we have to take to rebuild that trust. There is the obvious challenge, which the House considered last week, of delivering redress to the victims of this appalling scandal, but there are also things we have to do to improve the trust between the existing postmasters in every community and the senior management of the Post Office from now on. The Post Office’s establishment of a consultative council and a postmaster panel and its commitment to improving postmaster remuneration are important first steps in that regard. The Green Paper provides an opportunity to think about what else the Post Office can do.”
“I commend my hon. Friend for championing the post office in Cumbernauld and the communities around her constituency that depend on it and on the Post Office more generally. The most significant thing that we can do to help small businesses to access and deposit cash close to where they operate is to continue to try to improve the banking services provided through the Post Office. I hope that the banking industry will seize the opportunity of the Green Paper to work with the Post Office and with the Government to explore what more we can do collectively in that regard.”
“As I hope I made clear in my opening statement, and as the Green Paper certainly makes clear, our preference remains keeping the current size of the network and maintaining the access criteria. I say gently that there are strong views on that question, including some within the sub-postmaster community, but our preference at the moment is to maintain the current size of the network and the existing access criteria, because of the significance of the post office to every rural and urban community.”
“I am happy to consider any submission that my hon. Friend wants to make to the Green Paper. Indeed, I am happy to consider the thoughts and ideas of hon. Members across the House. My hon. Friend mentioned a particular issue in her constituency; if it is helpful, I am happy to meet her to discuss it in more detail.”
“The most important thing that we can do to help Post Office branches in rural areas in Scotland, and indeed across the UK, is to prioritise improving the commercial future of the Post Office. In that regard, it is important to invest in new technology—a replacement for Horizon is critical—and in technology to enable the banks to provide more banking services to all our communities using the Post Office, as I hope they will. The key priority for Governments across the UK, if we are to improve the opportunities for every branch to better serve every community across the UK, is to improve the commercial fortunes of the Post Office. The Green Paper sets out plans to do so, but I welcome views from across the House on what more we can do.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right; with good will on all sides, and with financial and operational stability, which I think we are beginning to see, there is a significant future ahead for the Post Office. As he says, the Post Office can continue to play an important role in reviving our high streets. The opportunity for banks to work with the Government and the Post Office to provide more banking services to all our constituents through the Post Office, could play a key role in helping to revive the high street and meet the needs of our constituents.”
“One crucial issue that we considered when we developed the Green Paper was how to address postmaster remuneration, because in some communities the Post Office has struggled to find people who are willing to take on the running of a franchise. It is important that Post Office senior management have improved postmaster pay, with £20 million last financial year, a commitment to £66 million this financial year, and a plan to go even further. I hope that will make a significant difference to the ability to find people to take on franchises, and not just in urban areas but in the rural areas the hon. Lady describes. She will forgive me for not knowing her constituency as well as she does, but if she wants to contact me about particular issues with branch closures, I would be happy to look at those.”
“My hon. Friend has long been a proud member of the Co-operative party and is interested in mutualisation, and I look forward to discussing these issues with her in due course. Discussions on the franchising of the remaining Crown post offices are still ongoing, both with franchisees and local communities, and specifically regarding arrangements for staff. The Post Office and the Communication Workers Union are continuing to talk to each other about how to manage the transition, and I welcome the positive dialogue that has taken place between them both.”
“Lady thinks it would be useful, I would be happy to speak to her separately about the specific issues that her constituents face, and to understand a little more about the specific problems she has raised.”
“I completely accept the significance of the Post Office in rural communities in particular, but it is equally essential that we have access to Post Office services in urban areas. The hon. Lady references the fragility of the Post Office, and that has certainly been the case in certain communities when finding postmasters who are willing to step forward and take on the role of running a Post Office franchise. That is why the initial steps that the Post Office management have taken to increase postmaster remuneration are important, by helping to make the role more attractive. It is also important that the Post Office has established a consultative council, to look properly at the way that postmasters are consulted and involved in big decisions about the future of the Post Office. If the hon.”
“In principle, I am very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the issues with post offices in his constituency. He gives me the opportunity to put on the record my appreciation for the work that all our postmasters do. They are hugely important servants of all our communities, and they play a crucial role for our constituents—I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that opportunity. The Green Paper is an opportunity for people in rural areas as well as urban areas to come forward with their views about the future of the Post Office. I hope that all hon. Members will encourage their constituents to think about taking that opportunity, and take a moment to send in their comments.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to make the task of running a post office more attractive. That is why improving both the culture, so that postmasters feel listened to, and the remuneration are hugely important immediate tasks. The best commercial opportunities for post offices lie in the provision of banking services, rather than Government services. I hope that the banks and the financial services industry will have heard the message from Members from all parts of the House: we want them to do more to work with Government to take advantage of the potential opportunities. As I have committed to meeting other hon. Members to discuss local issues, I had better do the same for the hon. Gentleman.”
“Post Office senior management clearly recognise that: there was a £20 million uplift in postmaster remuneration in the last financial year, there will be a £66 million increase this year, and Post Office management are committed to looking to go even further. I hope that will make the opportunity to run a post office much more attractive, and may address some of the financial challenges she raised.”
“As I have said, in our view we should retain the current size of the network and the current access criteria, which are key to ensuring that every community, whether rural or urban, has good access to post office services. I encourage the hon. Lady to reach out to the Post Office to discuss the particular issues facing the businesses to which she has referred, which are interested in running post office branches but feel unable to do so, to see whether anything can be done to ease those local challenges. More generally, the issue the hon. Lady raises partly speaks to the challenge of increasing postmaster remuneration.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that specific matter. I will happily draw the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), who is responsible for Royal Mail, to that issue. The hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me, but I am not aware of the details of the issue in his constituency, but he may want to write to us at the Department so that we pass the details directly to Royal Mail.”
“We will certainly look to act on the recommendations that Sir Wyn makes when the final part of his report comes out.”
“We can never properly recompense a person for being wrongly denied their freedom, for the humiliation of being wrongly accused or for seeing their loved ones in profound distress or worse, and neither can we recompense them for their good reputation being taken from them. I cannot assuage the anger of the victims, nor will the anger that I feel on their behalf ever be assuaged, but we are determined to do more on redress and beyond, and to do it quickly, to give more of the victims of this appalling scandal at least a measure of the peace that they so rightly deserve. I commend Sir Wyn’s report to the House.”
“The first challenge is to make sure that if there is ever another terrible scandal like this one—we all sincerely hope there is not—the victims do not need to bring a traumatic court case to expose it. The second challenge, if another such scandal happens, is that the Government must be set up to offer trusted redress from the very start. Sir Wyn argues that there should be a standing public body to deliver redress in any further scandal. I have a considerable amount of sympathy with that argument, but clearly we need to analyse the options fully before we commit to it. We will reflect on how to address those twin challenges and will bring back our conclusions to the House.”
“It will be open to close family members of existing Horizon claimants who themselves suffered personal injury, including psychological distress, because of their relatives’ suffering. Other than in exceptional circumstances, we will need contemporaneous written evidence of that personal injury. There are some fundamental lessons to be learned, to which Sir Wyn points, about how compensation following wrongdoing on this scale should be delivered in future. In particular, the Post Office should never have been allowed to run it, decisions on funding should have been made much more quickly, and it should not have needed an ITV drama to stimulate action to overturn hundreds of unjust convictions. We cannot now turn back the clock to fix those fundamental mistakes. We must instead address two challenges.”
“Secondly, we will provide redress for family members of postmasters who suffered because of the scandal. I have met the group Lost Chances for the Children of Sub-postmasters, which has campaigned with considerable courage on this issue. Sir Wyn rightly recognises that designing a suitable compensation scheme for family members raises some very difficult issues. None the less, we want to look after those family members who suffered most—meeting Sir Wyn’s recommendation that we should give “redress to close family members of those most adversely affected by Horizon.” Given those challenges, we will now discuss the details of how a scheme should be run with claimants’ lawyers, the independent advisory board and the Lost Chances group.”
“We have also begun discussions with Fujitsu on their contribution to the costs of the scandal. As the House knows, and as Sir Wyn’s report underlines, there is still a lot more to do. I know that the postmasters who have yet to agree final compensation are frustrated with the delay; so am I. We have consulted regularly with the Horizon compensation advisory board and others on what more we can do to improve redress. Sir Wyn’s recommendations are very helpful in that regard. Two of his recommendations address issues that we have already been working on across Government and with the advisory board. I can confirm that we accept Sir Wyn’s recommendation that claimants should be able to bank the best offer that they get from the GLO process and that it should not be put at risk if they choose to go to the independent panel.”
“Indeed, there was no compensation scheme in place for those postmasters whose convictions had been overturned by Parliament. A year ago, the Government had paid £236 million in redress. We have now quadrupled that to nearly £1.1 billion. We have launched a compensation scheme for postmasters who have had their convictions overturned—the Horizon convictions redress scheme—and have merged the Post Office’s compensation arrangements for overturned convictions into it. Through the Post Office, we have delivered a £75,000 fixed-sum offer to over 4,200 victims who opted for it. We have also launched an independent process to allow people to appeal their HSS settlements or offers. That should provide, as Sir Wyn says in his report, “an opportunity to put right any failures to deliver redress which is full and fair” for HSS victims.”
“The House will see that Sir Wyn has accepted that “the Post Office, the Department and Ministers continue to adhere to the aims of providing financial redress, which is full, fair and prompt.” He also concludes that the majority of people who have accepted offers under the group litigation order scheme “will have done so because, for them, the offer was full and fair.” That said, Sir Wyn makes some understandable criticisms, especially of the Horizon shortfall scheme, which we will need to study closely and address. We inherited a compensation process that was widely seen as too slow, adversarial and legalistic. Well over four years after the first High Court case exposed the scandal, only 2,500 postmasters had had final settlements. There were clearly significant gaps in the compensation process, and many victims had not come forward.”
“This is only the first volume of their final report, spelling out the scandal’s human impact and looking at the redress schemes that have been put in place in response. The second volume will in due course deal with the causes of the scandal and how repetition can be avoided. To be clear, I am very sympathetic to Sir Wyn’s 19 recommendations in the volume published today. Clearly, a number of them require careful consideration. We will respond to them promptly, as some concern the ongoing delivery of Horizon redress schemes. Sir Wyn has set us a deadline of 10 October, and we will meet it.”
“Sir Wyn Williams has today released the first volume of his report into the Horizon scandal, which caused so much harm to so many innocent people. The fearless and diligent work of his inquiry has, I believe, won the trust and admiration of postmasters. The inquiry has asked penetrating questions of a large number of witnesses and has scrutinised more than 2 million pages of evidence. I know that the whole House recognises the bravery of the postmasters who fought against enormous odds to see their cause recognised. Sir Wyn’s report reminds us that blameless people were impoverished, bankrupted, stressed beyond belief, and lost their jobs, marriages, reputations, mental health and, in some cases, their lives. I am sure that the whole House shares my gratitude to Sir Wyn and his team for their work so far.”
“On Fujitsu, we will need to see Sir Wyn’s final report to understand fully the degree of Fujitsu’s culpability. I have made it clear to Fujitsu that we think it should bring forward an interim compensation payment, and I hope that it will see the report today and recognise the need to do that. The hon. Lady also asked me about the Green Paper. We hope to publish it very shortly. One of the issues that it will consider is the future of the Post Office’s IT systems, because we certainly need to move on from the past and Horizon. We will set out in a bit more detail at that point what work we are doing in that regard.”
“We have put in place an appeals process to try to give those who feel they have not received a fair offer to date a chance to get full and fair redress. There are particular challenges in the Horizon shortfall scheme. If I am honest, it is the scheme that I worry about the most, not least because there are 1,700 cases in which there does not appear to be any evidence of shortfalls. That does not mean that there were no shortfalls; it means that, at this stage, we do not have evidence of what those shortfalls were. As the House would expect, I have gone back to the Post Office and made it clear that we want it to reinvestigate, to see whether evidence can be found in as many of those cases as possible. We are looking very carefully at what we can do about the rest.”
“I suspect that she already knows that the Metropolitan police is leading an investigation into whether criminal responsibility is at play. More than 100 police officers are working on that investigation and they have identified a number of individuals of interest. We will see what they do with regard to those individuals in due course. As the hon. Lady and the House will understand, Ministers are not in any way involved in such decisions. What further steps have we taken to deliver and speed up compensation? The hon. Lady will be aware that we have issued the opportunity for sub-postmasters who apply to the Horizon shortfall scheme and who want to accept a fixed-sum payment of £75,000 to do so.”
“Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for his work when he was the Post Office Minister. Without question, we would be even further behind without the considerable amount of work and effort that he put in. There are many others in the House who have campaigned long and hard on behalf of the sub-postmasters, including the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), who I see in his place, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), who chairs the Business and Trade Committee. The hon. Lady asked who and how will those responsible be held to account. She knows that Sir Wyn Williams is due to publish the second part of his report, which focuses on those very questions. We will consider carefully what he has to say about that when we receive his report.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and questions. She was right to say in her opening remarks about this being the greatest miscarriage of justice in our country’s history. The responsibility is therefore on us all to do everything we can to make sure the victims receive full and fair compensation, and to ensure that there is never a repeat. The hon. Lady specifically challenges me on the question of the 10 October deadline that Sir Wyn Williams has put in place. I can confirm that we are determined to meet that deadline. It is particularly important that we do so, as some of his recommendations concern the ongoing delivery of the Horizon compensation schemes and we do not want, inadvertently or not, to delay or hold back any of those claims. The hon. Lady rightly gives me the opportunity to again pay tribute to the hon.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) rightly joins all sides of the House in challenging Fujitsu to recognise its responsibilities. I hope it will read Sir Wyn’s report and conclusions afresh and recognise that it now needs to make an interim payment. Restorative justice is one of the significant recommendations in Sir Wyn’s list, and we will consider that very carefully. There is a series of options as to how one might deliver restorative justice, and there would clearly need to be consultation with the victims. We will think through the different steps that we need to take in that regard.”
“I welcome the hon. Lady’s comments, and I welcome the challenge to the Government to go further and faster on delivering compensation, not just from her and her party, but from across the House. She asked a similar question to that from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), who spoke for the official Opposition, on whether we would accept the recommendations that Sir Wyn has set out today. As I made clear in my opening remarks, we are very sympathetic to all his recommendations. Indeed, I was able to confirm today that we have accepted two of his recommendations: to provide compensation for family members and to move on the question of the best offer. I hope that gives the House confidence that we will meet the deadline that Sir Wyn Williams has imposed on us. The hon.”
“There are again some significant challenges around the availability of evidence, given that the use of the Capture software was before the introduction of the Horizon computer system, and so the amount of evidence available is significantly less. None the less, we are working at pace on the design of such a scheme.”
“I welcome my hon. Friend’s work on the Business and Trade Committee and more generally in pushing the Government to do more on full and fair compensation. On the question of family members, Sir Wyn makes it clear in his report not only that offering a compensation scheme for family members is the right thing to do, but that there will be significant design challenges in how such a scheme is put together. We will work with the independent Horizon compensation advisory board, with claimants’ lawyers and with the campaign group Lost Chances on the design of such a scheme. My hon. Friend briefly mentioned Capture, as did the hon. Member for West Worcestershire. We are in the process of working with a number of the victims of the Capture scandal and their legal representatives to design an effective compensation process for them.”