Fresh stress on Lib Dem chief Sir Ed Davey over Post Office scandal

Liberal Democrat chief Sir Ed Davey is underneath contemporary stress over the Post Office Horizon scandal amid renewed scrutiny of his actions as a authorities minister.

The Sunday Times has revealed a cache of correspondence between former sub-postmaster Alan Bates and ex-ministers from the Coalition authorities – together with Sir Ed.

Mr Bates’s struggle for justice has been portrayed by Toby Jones within the acclaimed new ITV drama, ‘Mr Bates vs the Post Office’, which has raised new public consciousness of the scandal.

More than 700 Post Office department managers have been handed prison convictions after defective Fujitsu accounting software program, often known as Horizon, made it seem as if cash was lacking from their retailers.

It has been described as essentially the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British historical past and a public inquiry into it’s ongoing.

Sir Ed was right this moment accused of ‘fobbing off’ the victims of the scandal after his replies to Mr Bates throughout his time as postal affairs minister between 2010 to 2012 have been revealed.

Liberal Democrat chief Sir Ed Davey is underneath contemporary stress over the Post Office Horizon scandal amid renewed scrutiny of his actions as a authorities minister

The Sunday Times has revealed a cache of correspondence between former sub-postmaster Alan Bates and ex-ministers from the Coalition authorities – together with Sir Ed.

Mr Bates’s struggle for justice has been portrayed by Toby Jones within the acclaimed new ITV drama, ‘Mr Bates vs the Post Office’, which has raised new public consciousness of the scandal

The Sunday Times reported Mr Bates wrote 5 letters to Sir Ed throughout his time within the function.

In the primary of them, on 20 May 2010, Mr Bates urged Sir Ed to intervene and known as for an ‘unbiased exterior investigation instigated at ministerial stage’.

He mentioned this might ‘with none doubt simply discover proof of the error-ridden system’.

In his reply, Sir Ed instructed Mr Bates {that a} assembly wouldn’t serve ‘any helpful function’ and instructed the matter was not a problem for the federal government because the Post Office was handled as an ‘arm’s size’ physique by ministers. 

In a follow-up to Sir Ed’s letter, on 8 July 2020, Mr Bates instructed the then minister his response to the ‘very critical points I had raised was not solely disappointing however I truly discovered your feedback offensive’.

‘It is as a result of you’ve adopted an arm’s size relationship… [that] you’ve enabled them to hold on with impunity whatever the human distress and struggling they inflict,’ he added.

The newspaper reported the pair then met and, in one other letter despatched on 14 October 2010, Mr Bates sought to elaborate on a variety of points that they had mentioned.

Per week later, on 21 October 2010, Mr Bates wrote to Sir Ed for a fourth time to inform him of ‘one more sufferer’.

But, in a reply in December 2010, Sir Ed instructed Mr Bates that ‘as I made clear within the assembly’ neither he nor the Department for Business may intervene in circumstances presently earlier than the courts or the place a authorized judgment had been reached.

He added: ‘POL [Post Office Ltd] continues to precise full confidence within the integrity and robustness of the Horizon system and likewise categorically states that there isn’t any distant entry… which might permit accounting information to be manipulated in any approach.’

In a fifth letter to Sir Ed, on 20 August 2011, Mr Bates accused the minister of ‘having nailed your colors to POL’s mast’ and instructed there ‘was little level in persevering with a dialogue with you or your division’.

He additionally notified Sir Ed that members of the Justice For Sub-postmasters Alliance (JFSA) had begun authorized motion in opposition to the Post Office and warned the eventual monetary legal responsibility for taxpayers ‘has the potential of being astronomical’.

Mr Bates added that Sir Ed’s resolution to ‘ignore our supply to work with you and your division’ had left the group with ‘no choice aside from to hunt redress by means of the courts, which is now the place the true fact behind Horizon shall be uncovered’.

Sir Ed was promoted to the Cabinet as vitality secretary in February 2012, at which level he was succeeded as postal affairs minister by fellow Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb, who in flip was changed by Jo Swinson six months later.

During the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition authorities, the Department for Business was run by senior Lib Dem MP Sir Vince Cable.

Former Lib Dem ministers have been accused of ‘fobbing off’ victims of the Post Office scandal whereas they have been in authorities. 

Senior SNP MP Joanna Cherry posted on Twitter: ‘With authorities comes duty.

‘Lib Dems within the body for fobbing off the victims of Post Office miscarriages of justice however successive Tory Governments should not be off the hook & it falls to them to lastly kind this out.’

A Lib Dem supply pointed to how Sir Ed was the primary postal affairs minister to document a gathering with Mr Bates after he had beforehand reached out to numerous ministers underneath the earlier Labour authorities.

They additionally famous how 4 Tory postal affairs ministers between 2015 and 2019 recorded no official conferences with Mr Bates or the JFSA.

A celebration spokesperson mentioned: ‘Ed’s coronary heart goes out to the households caught up on this scandal and his focus is on getting justice and compensation for these impacted.

‘Not realising that the Post Office was mendacity on an industrial scale is a big remorse. Ed will absolutely cooperate with the inquiry to unravel what went mistaken.’