‘Need for new leadership’ at Post Office as chairman Henry Staunton ousted, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch says
The business secretary has said she “felt there was a need for new leadership” at the Post Office as it was announced its chairman is being forced out of the role.
Henry Staunton has stepped down amid ongoing tensions with the government in the wake of the Horizon IT scandal.
An interim will be appointed “shortly”, the Department for Business and Trade said.
Henry Staunton
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch said: “The Post Office is rightfully under a heightened level of scrutiny at this time.
“With that in mind, I felt there was a need for new leadership, and we have parted ways with mutual consent.”
Mr Staunton’s departure follows frustration in Whitehall over the company’s governance, including a row over the prospective appointment of a new senior independent director, Sky News reported on Saturday.
Insiders told Sky News his exit was not directly related to the Horizon scandal itself, but there had been differences of opinion between him and the government as to the best candidate for the job.
Mr Staunton had been tasked with leading the board of directors as the business reels from the fallout of what has been described as the UK’s biggest miscarriage of justice.
More than 700 branch managers were prosecuted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their shops.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses are still awaiting compensation despite the government announcing those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.
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Call for ‘major change’ in senior management
Labour MP Kevan Jones told Sky News the government needed to explain why it had sacked Mr Staunton, adding: “I would also argue that there needs to be major changes in the senior management of the Post Office.
“Remember, on his watch, the senior executives who got bonuses for cooperation with the public inquiry, even though the public inquiry is still trying to get information out of the Post Office. So no, there’s more changes got to happen.”
Mr Jones also said there “should be a serious question mark” over Post Office boss Nick Reed’s position.
Tory peer Lord Arbuthnot, who has sought justice for the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, ruled himself out of the running to replace Mr Staunton.
“There is a need for dramatic cultural and governance change which can be brought in only by someone with experience of doing that sort of thing,” he told The Independent.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch will appear on today’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, which starts at 8.30am.
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The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the three month period.
The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.
Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.
And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.
Pic: Reuters
Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Am I satisfied with the numbers published today? Of course not. I want growth to be stronger, to come sooner, and also to be felt by families right across the country.”
“It’s why in my Mansion House speech last night, I announced some of the biggest reforms of our pension system in a generation to unlock long term patient capital, up to £80bn to help invest in small businesses and scale up businesses and in the infrastructure needs,” Ms Reeves later told Sky News in an interview.
“We’re four months into this government. There’s a lot more to do to turn around the growth performance of the last decade or so.”
New economy data tests chancellor’s growth plan
The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.
The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.
The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.
It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.
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The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.
The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.
Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.
The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.
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