The Post Office Scandal: Sir Ed Davey’s Meeting with Alan Bates and the Horizon Accounting System

The Post Office scandal, which came to light between 1999 and 2015, is a significant and complex issue that involved the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses due to faults with the Horizon accounting system. Sir Ed Davey, who served as postal affairs minister between May 2010 and February 2012, oversaw the Post Office during this period. This article will explore Sir Ed Davey’s involvement in the scandal, specifically his meeting with Alan Bates, the campaigner for wrongful convictions to be overturned.

Sir Ed Davey was initially advised to meet Alan Bates in May 2010 to avoid potential bad publicity. However, his first request for a meeting was rejected on the grounds that the issues raised were operational and contractual matters for the Post Office. At the time, the Post Office maintained that the Horizon system was not faulty.

Documents obtained by the BBC under Freedom of Information laws reveal that officials at the business department advised Sir Ed to continue expressing full confidence in the integrity and robustness of the Horizon system during his meeting with Alan Bates in October 2010. They also warned him to avoid any commitment to adopting any of the objectives put forward by Alan Bates’s campaign group and to avoid commenting on impending legal matters.

Sir Ed later wrote in the Guardian newspaper that he regretted not meeting Alan Bates sooner and that he took the concerns raised very seriously. He put them to the Post Office. However, it is now clear that the advice Sir Ed was given at the time was based on lies by the Post Office.

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses after faults with the Horizon accounting system made it look like money was missing. The Post Office owned but did not run by the government maintained that the system was not faulty. Sir Ed, as the postal affairs minister, was responsible for overseeing the Post Office during this period.

Alan Bates, who set up the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, wanted to discuss the Horizon scandal with Sir Ed. His initial request for a meeting in May 2010 was rejected, but Sir Ed did later meet him in October that year. The documents show that officials at the business department advised Sir Ed to meet Alan Bates for presentational reasons to avoid potential headlines such as “government minister refusing to meet victims.”

The note obtained by the BBC also advised Sir Ed to avoid any commitment to setting up an independent/external review of Horizon, as it would be expensive and time-consuming. They also advised him to establish at an early stage in the meeting whether Alan Bates was considering legal action against the Post Office, so that Sir Ed could adopt an approach of avoiding commenting on impending legal matters.

Sir Ed is not the only politician to face questions about his response to the scandal. Several Conservative and Labour MPs held the postal affairs brief while the scandal was coming to light, and the Lib Dems have accused the Conservative-majority government in place since 2015 of being slow to compensate victims.

The business department, which is responsible for the Post Office, is now working to speed up compensation to those wrongfully convicted and is bringing forward legislation to overturn the convictions of those wrongly prosecuted. They pay tribute to the incredible campaign that Alan has led and his determination to get justice for the thousands of innocent postmasters affected by this scandal.

In conclusion, Sir Ed Davey’s meeting with Alan Bates in October 2010 is an essential aspect of the Post Office scandal. The documents obtained by the BBC reveal that officials at the business department advised Sir Ed to meet Alan Bates for presentational reasons and warned him to avoid any commitment to setting up an independent/external review of Horizon. It is now clear that the advice Sir Ed was given at the time was based on lies by the Post Office. The Post Office scandal is a significant and complex issue that involved the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses due to faults with the Horizon accounting system. The business department is now working to speed up compensation to those wrongfully convicted and is bringing forward legislation to overturn the convictions of those wrongly prosecuted.