Horizon scandal: Post Office scandal victims to be exonerated and compensated as Rishi Sunak proposes new law
The prime minister has said a new law will be introduced so people wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.
In the first Prime Minister’s Questions of the year, Rishi Sunak said he plans to make sure those convicted as part of the Post Office scandal get exonerated through an act of parliament.
As well as announcing new legislation, which the postal affairs minister said would take “some weeks to deliver”, the prime minister said upfront compensation of £75,000 will be awarded to the 555 postmasters who took their case to the High Court in 2019 as a group litigation.
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The government has come under increased pressure to take action on the Horizon scandal following the airing of ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office last week.
More than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted for accounting errors relying on data from the faulty Horizon software.
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Teju Adedayo recalls how she had to warn her children she may go to prison.
Once they are exonerated, the government has confirmed victims will be eligible for at least £600,000 compensation, depending on their circumstances.
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Former sub-postmaster reacts to law that could see victims to be exonerated and compensated
The scheme applies to England and Wales.
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Protesters outside the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry in London in 2022
‘The victims must get justice’
Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Sunak said: “Mr Speaker, this is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history.
“People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own.
“The victims must get justice and compensation. Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry is undertaking crucial work to undo, to expose what went wrong, and we’ve paid almost £150m in compensation to over to 2,500 victims.”
Mr Sunak said the new legislation would ensure victims are “swiftly exonerated and compensated”.
The prime minister’s spokesman said the intention was to have the legislation introduced within weeks and compensation paid out by the end of the year.
The prime minister announced the measurs in the House of Commons
How will new legislation work?
Kevin Hollinrake, the postal minister, provided an update on the government’s plan to the Commons after PMQs.
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Minister wary of ‘interfering with courts’
He said all those claiming compensation will sign a statement of truth to say they did not commit the crimes of which they were accused.
“Anyone subsequently found to have signed such a statement untruthfully will be putting themselves at risk of prosecution or fraud,” Mr Hollinrake said.
The minister admitted this was not “foolproof”, but it was a “proportionate” device “which respects the ordeal with which these people have already suffered”.
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Postmasters ‘used as guinea pigs’ says IT expert
He also said the government was considering whether people who had their appeals refused already would have their convictions overturned.
Numerous ways to fast-track the overturning of convictions had been mooted prior to today’s announcement.
Some had called for a mass appeal before the Court of Appeal, while others wanted legislation to overturn the convictions or even a pardon from the King.
It is not clear exactly how the mechanics of the Commons overturning hundreds of prosecutions will work.
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Sir Keir welcomed the news
Labour welcomes PM’s plan
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, indicated earlier this week that his party would support an attempt through law to overturn the convictions.
Responding to Mr Sunak today, Sir Keir said the scandal “is a huge injustice”
“People lost their lives, their liberty, and their livelihood, and they’ve been waiting far too long for the truth, for justice, and for compensation,” he added.
“So I’m glad the prime minister is putting forward a proposal.
“We will look at the details, and I think it’s the job of all of us to make sure that it delivers the justice that is so needed.”
James Strong, the director of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, told Sky News that the reaction to the programme has been “unbelievable” and “astonishing”.
He told presenter Mark Austin: “For it to transcend into the national consciousness in quite the way it’s done, quite the scale it’s done, it’s taken everybody by surprise who made it. So we’re thrilled and delighted, but slightly shocked as well.”
He added: “We strove and we put everything into it to make it… as compulsive and as watchable as possible.”
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Last year, the government announced that every wrongly convicted sub-postmaster and sub-postmistress would be offered £600,000 in compensation.
In 2019, the Post Office agreed to pay £58m to 555 sub-postmaster and sub-mistresses.
The US Nasdaq stock exchange is making SEC approval of its proposal to offer tokenized versions of stocks listed on the exchange a top priority, according to the exchange’s crypto chief.
“We’ll just move as fast as we can,” Nasdaq’s head of digital assets strategy, Matt Savarese, said during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, when asked whether the SEC could approve the proposal this year.
“I think what we have to really evaluate where the public comments come back in and then answer and respond to the SEC questions as they come through,” Savarese said. “We hope to kind of work with them as quickly as possible,” Savarese said.
Savarese says Nasdaq isn’t “upending the system”
The proposal, submitted by Nasdaq on Sept. 8, is requesting to allow investors to buy and sell stock tokens — digital representations of shares in publicly traded companies — on the exchange.
Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is not trying to overhaul the way stocks are invested in when asked whether he expects other major exchanges to follow suit.
“We’re not looking at upending the system; we want everyone to come along for that ride and bring tokenization more into the mainstream,” he said.
“We want to do it in that responsible investor-led way first, under the SEC rules themselves,” he added.
It was only in October that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that tokenization will “eventually eat the whole financial system.”
The crypto industry is divided on tokenized equities
Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is aiming to be an innovator in the ecosystem, noting that the exchange was the first to transition markets from paper-based trading to electronic systems.
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Tokenizing stocks has been one of the most significant talking points in the crypto industry this year.
On Sept. 3, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said the company became the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize its equity on a major blockchain following its launch on the Solana network.
The conversation around tokenized equities has also drawn skepticism from the crypto industry.
On Oct. 1, Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly, told Cointelegraph that tokenized equities will be a significant benefit to traditional markets, but may not be a boon to the crypto industry as others have predicted.
Hadick said that if tokenized stocks use layer-2 networks, it creates “leakage” as value and may not flow back to Ethereum or the broader crypto ecosystem as much as hoped.
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Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and head of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, reaffirmed the right to crypto self-custody and privacy in financial transactions.
“I’m a freedom maximalist,” Peirce told The Rollup podcast on Friday, while saying that self-custody of assets is a fundamental human right. She added:
“Why should I have to be forced to go through someone else to hold my assets? It baffles me that in this country, which is so premised on freedom, that would even be an issue — of course, people can hold their own assets.”
Peirce added that online financial privacy should be the standard. “It has become the presumption that if you want to keep your transactions private, you’re doing something wrong, but it should be exactly the opposite presumption,” she said.
The comments came as the Digital Asset Market Structure Clarity Act, a crypto market structure bill that includes provisions for self-custody, anti-money laundering(AML) regulations, and asset taxonomy, is delayed until 2026, according to Senator Tim Scott.
Related: SEC to hold privacy and financial surveillance roundtable in December
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) challenge Bitcoin’s self-custody ethos
Many large Bitcoin (BTC) whales and long-term holders are pivoting from self-custody to ETFs to reap the tax benefits and hassle-free management of owning crypto in an investment vehicle.
“We are witnessing the first decline in self-custodied Bitcoin in 15 years,” Dr. Martin Hiesboeck, the head of research at crypto exchange Uphold, said.
Hiesboeck attributed the shift to the SEC approving in-kind creations and redemptions for crypto ETFs in July, which allowed authorized holders to exchange crypto for ETF shares and vice versa without triggering a taxable event, unlike cash-settled ETFs.
“A move away from the self-custody mantra of ‘not your keys, not your coins’ is another nail in the coffin of the original crypto spirit,” Hiesboeck added.
In February, notable Bitcoin analyst and investor PlanB, the developer of the BTC stock-to-flow model, announced that he transferred his Bitcoin to ETFs to alleviate the “hassle” of private key management.
PlanB’s announcement caused an outcry in the Bitcoin community, as many voiced concerns that handing over custody to a third party clashed with Bitcoin’s core values.
Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice
Jeremy Corbyn has declined to say his Your Party co-founder Zarah Sultana is a friend as supporters of the new grouping gather in Liverpool.
Speaking to Sky News on the eve of the conference, Mr Corbyn acknowledged “stresses and strains” in the set-up of the party but said it had become “a lot better in the last few days and weeks and we’re going to get through this weekend”.
The former Labour leader has publicly clashed with Ms Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, over the launch and structure of the new party.
Asked if they were friends, Mr Corbyn said they were “colleagues in parliament, and we obviously communicate and so on”.
The pair appeared at separate events on the eve of the party’s inaugural gathering.
Ms Sultana had previously claimed she was being “sidelined” by a “sexist boys’ club” within the fledgling party.
Mr Corbyn said her comments were an “unfortunate choice of words” but added that he had been more involved in the organisation of the conference than she had.
The co-founders have had a strained relationship since setting up the party. Pic: Your Party
The Islington North MP also said that Your Party was still waiting for Ms Sultana to transfer all of the funds she had raised from supporters.
“Obviously having money up front for a conference is a big help,” he said.
Ms Sultana has insisted she is transferring the donations in stages.
The weekend gathering in Liverpool will see supporters choose between four options for a permanent party name: Your Party, Our Party, Popular Alliance, For the Many.
The preferred choice of Ms Sultana – The Left – did not make the ballot.
Similarly, the Coventry MP had said she favoured a co-leader approach, but members will only be able to pick between single leadership or collective leadership models.
Speaking at her own pre-conference rally, Ms Sultana blamed a “nameless, faceless bureaucrat” for restricting the choices.
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The meeting also risked being disrupted by a series of member expulsions. One of those ejected, Lewis Nielsen, accused a “clique” of trying to “take over”.
Your Party sources said expulsions related to members of the Socialist Workers Party and that holding another national party membership was not allowed.
Ms Sultana blamed a “culture of paranoia at the top” and said she believed the same people who had been briefing against her were now also expelling members.
Mr Corbyn will open the conference on Saturday, while the results of the main decision-making votes will be announced on Sunday.
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