Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has apologised to former sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates for refusing to meet him as he tried to expose the Horizon IT scandal. Davey, who served as postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, told the public inquiry into the scandal that the Post Office lied to him and his officials.
“I now know I was being lied to,” Davey said on Thursday. He named former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells and former managing director David Smith as among those who passed “untrue” information, though he stopped short of accusing them personally of lying. “Someone senior” in the Post Office must have known the truth, he added.
Davey faced questions about his actions as the scandal unfolded. On his first day as minister in May 2010, he received a letter from Bates requesting a meeting. Davey replied that “a meeting would serve no useful purpose”. He later apologised for his “terse” response, saying he did not remember reading the first letter and relied on officials’ advice. They eventually met in October 2010.
Both Davey and Pat McFadden, a former postal minister under Labour, said they would have acted differently had they known the truth. McFadden, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, suggested the inquiry consider creating an inspectorate for arm’s-length government bodies. Davey proposed mutualising the Post Office and introducing a statutory duty of candour for public officials.
The Horizon inquiry has heard from hundreds of witnesses over more than two years, including affected sub-postmasters, executives, and politicians. The scandal, described as one of the UK’s worst miscarriages of justice, saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongfully prosecuted for fraud due to faulty accounting software.
