Boris Johnson's commitment to investigate the post office scandal when in doubt

MP Gill Furniss, the fictional Minister of Labor for the Post, said she was pleased that the Prime Minister had accepted a public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal. This is a testament to the relentless campaign of hundreds of deputy masters and members of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices from all parties.

Conservative MP Lucy Allan, who has established herself as a passionate advocate for justice for affected deputy masters, said: I interpret what (the Prime Minister) has declared as a commitment to carry out a investigation. Some very high-ranking people in government believe that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

But due to the ambiguity of Johnsons' words, Computer Weekly contacted number 10 for more details, asking specifically if the Prime Minister is determined to conduct a full public inquiry and whether it would be led by a judge.

The answer from number 10 clearly indicates that no decision has been made. The last line of the statement confirms that the government is currently examining what can be done beyond ensuring that the Post respects its commitments, made in the framework of the judicial settlement, to change its relations with the deputy masters. .

In response to a question from Computer Weeklys, the government said: We take post office relations with its post masters very seriously and are monitoring the situation closely during the legal proceedings. The post office, under the leadership of its new CEO, has since acknowledged that he was wrong, apologized and stated that he intended to re-establish a positive relationship with postmasters. The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is actively working with Swiss Post on this issue and will hold them accountable for their progress. We are also looking at what needs to be done more.

A public inquiry would put the government, the post office and the supplier Horizon Fujitsu in the spotlight.

The post office is owned by the government and a member of the government sits on its board of directors. In a recent debate with the Lords, the government admitted it had been too passive in the way it operates the post office and said it would change.

During a debate in the House of Lords in early February, peer conservative Stuart Polak asked Ian Duncan, peer conservative and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Business, Affairs and Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), what was the exact role of the departments representing La Poste's board of directors is.

Duncan confirmed that there is a non-executive director who is responsible for representing the department and the government, but said that the role was passive and that it will be changed following court decisions.

The government also recently claimed that the Post Office had misled him when asked if the problems raised by the masters concerning the Horizon system were true.

Answer the questions in the debate in the House of Lords on February 25, Martin Callanan, a minister in the British government in the House of Lords, suggested that the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) had been misled by the post office about Horizon computer problems.

Callanan said BEIS is counting on the management of the post office to investigate problems with the Horizon system. The government was assured that the system was solid and that the problems raised by postmasters were dealt with appropriately. BEIS put pressure on management on these issues and received consistent advice from company experts who appeared to verify these allegations at the time, he said.

In retrospect, of course, the facts were revealed by litigation which revealed that the advice given during this period was flawed, he added. Callanan was referring to the second trial judgment in the recent multi-million pound litigation.

In his judgment, Justice Fraser stated that the post office had displayed mere institutional obstinacy or refused to consider possible alternatives to their vision of Horizon.

This approach of the post office is in reality equivalent to simple assertions and denials that ignore what really happened, at least as far as the witnesses called before me at the trial for questions of horizon are concerned. . This is equivalent to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the Earth is flat, said Fraser.

Arbuthnot, former Member of Parliament for Hampshire North East, and now Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, said that conducting a full public inquiry would be difficult due to the fact that the government may have to pay large sums of compensation and was under little pressure due to a large majority in the House of Commons.