Speaking in the House of Commons this afternoon, Rayleigh and Wickford MP, Mark Francois, called on Fujitsu, who manufactured the faulty Horizon system, which has led to such misery for sub-postmasters, to dip into their profits to help pay them compensation.
In response to an Urgent Question on the subject, Postal Services Minister, Kevin Hollinrake MP, announced that the Government would rapidly introduce primary legislation to help effectively absolve sub- postmasters. In reply, Mark said the following:
“Can I commend the Minister, the Justice Secretary and all those who advised them for having to exercise the judgement of Solomon on this, but nonetheless, coming up with a practical and importantly a rapid solution. On Fujitsu, they are a multibillion dollar company, with numerous government contracts including a number with the Ministry of Defence, they have persistently for years been reluctant to admit weaknesses in their system. Does the Minister agree that they have a moral duty, if not, directly a legal one to put that right? We should review all of their government contracts and if they will not do the right thing then we should consider suspending them?
In response, the Postal Services Minister, Kevin Hollinrake MP, said:
“I thank him for his comments. We do see this as being as practical and rapid as he describes it. On the point of Fujitsu which has been raised very often he is right that they have significant government contracts with both the Ministry of Defence and HMRC as well amongst others. I think it is right to let the process take its course, the inquiry looks at who was responsible for what, who was responsible between the Post Office and Fujitsu who told people to do what. It is right we have a process where we do set some criteria about who can access government contracts. Those are conversations we should have once we have identified who exactly is responsible. We will not be able to do that yet, but we are keen to do it as quickly as possible.”
