Sir Alan Bates reacts to Rachel Reeves’ ‘attention-grabbing’ replace on Post Office scandal compensation
The Government will set aside £11.8 billion to compensate those affected by the infected blood scandal and £1.8 billion to compensate victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced – as part of her Autumn Budget 2024.
Giving his reaction to the news, Sir Alan Bates, a 2023 Pride of Britain winner for his campaigning for subpostmasters whose lives were destroyed by the scandal, told The Mirror: “I wasn’t aware that the Chancellor was making any update or announcement regarding our long-awaited compensation. “
Sir Alan added that the new update was “interesting” but is keen to hear more on the Chancellor’s plans: “We will have to wait and see. The devil is in the detail.
“For the GLO compensation group, the deadline under the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024 was August 7, 2024. We are still waiting.”
The GLO group scheme is one of four set up to compensate victims, Sir Alan and others from the original 555-strong group litigation order case, were offered £75,000 and could also go through an assessment process for more.
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On October 2, Sir Alan wrote to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urging him to ensure the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) completely finishes all the GLO claims by March 2025, and if the DBT were not capable of undertaking the work in order to meet that deadline, then an external person or company should be brought in to finish the job.
Former subpostmaster Sir Alan led a group of 555 workers in a landmark court case against the Post Office depicted in ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office aired earlier this year.
Three months earlier in October 2023, Sir Alan was awarded a Pride of Britain special recognition award for fighting a decades-long crusade against the Post Office on behalf of hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses wrongfully prosecuted and, in several cases, wrongly jailed. The award was presented by TV stars Judge Rob Rinder and Rylan Clark.
Sir Alan was given a knighthood in June for his services to justice, in the King’s Birthday Honours List.
In Mr Bates vs The Post Office which told how Post Office staff were blamed for glitches in the Horizon IT system, developed by the Japanese firm Fujitsu, which made it appear that they were swindling cash, triggered a wave of public fury. More than 900 subpostmasters were convicted for theft and fraud between 1999 and 2015 and many were left bankrupt.
