Post Office inquiry: Execs and government ‘dragged their feet’ on compensation, ex-chair Henry Staunton says

Published

10 months ago

October 1, 2024

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The Post Office was a “mess” run by executives and government appointees who “dragged their feet” in efforts to compensate and exonerate sub-postmasters, the former chairman has told the public inquiry.

Henry Staunton, who was sacked after 14 months as chair by then business secretary Kemi Badenoch in January, also accused the organisation of having a “huge cultural problem” with a lack of ethnic and gender diversity – and of overseeing “vindictive” investigations into two sub-postmasters who served on the company board.

He also denied allegations that he made racist and misogynistic comments about Post Office colleagues, saying he had been “deeply stung” by an internal investigation he says was used as a pretext by Ms Badenoch to remove him.

A former chairman of WH Smith and director of ITV, Mr Staunton was appointed in December 2022 after being approached by headhunters who told him he would be “giving something back” if he took the job.

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He said he found a culture of chaos in senior management that immediately required more than the two days a week he had been told was required.

“The place was a mess that required more of my time,” he said. His view was that executives did not fully accept the findings of the High Court judgment that established the role of the Horizon computer system in hundreds of flawed prosecutions.

“My initial impression was that the Post Office and government were dragging their feet in terms of making payments for remediation – in the first place – and in the second place I thought that there was no appetite at all for exoneration,” he told the inquiry.

Mr Staunton said that initially a “ridiculous” amount of his time was taken up with requests for a pay rise from chief executive Nick Read, who he previously told a Parliamentary inquiry was unhappy and threatening to resign.

In November 2022, before he was formally in post, he was asked to sign a letter to the secretary of state recommending an increase from the maximum of £788,500 to £1.125m, a “massive” increase that Mr Staunton said the minister was right to reject.

He said the environment among senior staff was characterised by “risk aversion and paralysis” and “a culture of fear and worry”, in part because executives feared being called to give evidence to the public inquiry.

Referring to a letter he received from an anonymous whistleblower, that alleged a “disgusting culture” at the Post Office, Mr Staunton agreed the organisation “had a huge problem with culture”.

“Ethnicity was very poorly represented. We did have a problem with ethnicity. We did have a problem with gender.”

He also recognised claims that Mr Read had referred to, of those with a “public school education”, and that there was a perception of “jobs for the boys”.

Mr Staunton was also highly critical of an internal investigation launched into two sub-postmasters who had been appointed to the board as non-executive directors, alleging it was held open for months as a means of intimidating them.

Inquiry hears recording of chair’s sacking

The inquiry also heard details of Mr Staunton’s dismissal and was played a recording of the telephone call in which Ms Badenoch told him he was being removed because of “complaints that are so serious the government needs to intervene”.

Mr Staunton told the inquiry that her call came several hours after a journalist, understood to be Sky News’ Mark Kleinman, rang him to tell him he was likely to be fired.

He was not told on that call what the complaints were, but the previous month had learned his conduct was being examined as part of a Post Office investigation based initially on an 80-page complaint against Mr Read by the then chief people officer. In the complaint, Mr Staunton was mentioned only once and not by name.

The allegation against him was that he made inappropriate comments about gender and race at a meeting about candidates to chair the Post Office remuneration committee. In his witness statement to the inquiry, he said: “I deny those allegations completely and feel deeply stung by them.”

He told the inquiry that three former Post Office colleagues – one Jewish, one Muslim and one black – had provided letters of support in his defence to questions from the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

“All three directors have said they thought there was not an ounce of racism in me and indeed I was a champion of greater diversity of ethnicity and gender on the board,” he said.

In his witness statement, he said details of the investigation and its findings against him, which have never been published, were leaked to the media by a government source who claimed they explained why he objected to being sacked by a minister who was “black and female.”

“I was deeply aggrieved at being made a fall guy for failings that I myself had been struggling to get the Post Office to address,” he said.

“This was a report into Nick Read, not about me, but because I had taken the side of the sub-postmasters it was weaponised against me.”

Business

Microsoft is now worth over $4 trn, becoming only second firm ever to pass milestone

Published

8 hours ago

July 31, 2025

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Microsoft has become only the second publicly traded company after Nvidia to surpass $4 trn (£3.03trn) in market valuation, after registering huge earnings.

On Thursday, shares rose on Wall Street with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq climbing to new record highs.

Stocks in Microsoft jumped after posting better-than-expected results, helped by its Azure cloud computing platform, which is a centrepiece of the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) efforts.

Shares in Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, also surged after beating sales and profit targets.

Technology giants Apple and Amazon will report their results after Wall Street’s close.

Microsoft first cracked the $1trn (£760bn) mark in April 2019, but its move to $3trn (£2.27trn) took longer than technology giants Nvidia and Apple.

Nvidia tripled its value in just about a year and clinched the $4trn milestone before any other company on 9 July. Apple was last valued at $3.12trn.

In comparison, the biggest UK company by market value is drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, worth $235.97bn (£178.55bn).

Companies ranked by market value (USD), according to tradingview.com

1. Nvidia (US) $4.43trn
2. Microsoft (US) $4trn
3. Apple (US) $3.12trn
4. Amazon (US) $2.47trn
5. Alphabet (US) $2.35trn
6. Meta (US) $1.95trn
7. Saudi Arabian Oil (Saudi Arabia) $1.56trn
8. Broadcom (US) $1.42trn
9. Berkshire Hathaway (US) $1.03trn
10. Tesla (US) $1.02trn
11. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (Taiwan) $1trn
29. Samsung Electronics (South Korea) $338.06bn
36. Alibaba (China) $284.62bn
52. AstraZeneca (UK) $235.97bn

While sweeping US tariffs had investors worried about tighter business spending, Microsoft’s strong earnings have shown that the company’s books are yet to take a hit.

Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar bet on OpenAI is proving to be a game changer, powering its Office Suite and Azure offerings with cutting-edge AI and fueling the stock to more than double its value since ChatGPT’s late-2022 debut.

On Wednesday, the firm announced Azure sales surpassed $75bn (£56bn) on an annual basis, while Azure revenue jumped 39% in the April-June quarter.

Overall revenue rose 18% to $76.4bn (£57.81bn) over the same period.

It is also forecasting a record $30bn (£22.7bn) in capital spending over the first quarter to meet soaring AI demand..

Business

Christmas food price shock looms, chancellor warned

Published

23 hours ago

July 31, 2025

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Christmas food price shock looms, chancellor warned

Food inflation will rise to 6% by the end of the year – posing a “significant challenge” to household budgets in the run-up to Christmas, industry leaders have predicted.

The British Retail Consortium is warning that the chancellor risks “fanning the flames of inflation” if she hikes taxes in the coming budget.

Despite intense price competition between supermarket chains, the BRC has sounded the alarm over the pace of grocery price hikes.

As of this month, food inflation has risen 4% year on year – its highest level since February 2024.

The BRC said this increase is linked to global factors, such as high demand and crop struggles.

Beef, chicken and tea prices are among those that have risen the most this year – but some of the blame is being laid squarely at the chancellor’s door too.

The BRC said it was inevitable that a £7bn burden, through changes to employers’ national insurance contributions and minimum pay rules after last October’s budget, had been partly passed on to customers in the form of higher prices.

It published the results of a survey of retail industry finance chiefs to illustrate its point – that nerves about what Ms Reeves’s second budget could bring were not helping companies invest in either new employment or prices.

Business was promised it would be spared additional pain after it was put on the hook for the bulk of the chancellor’s tax-raising measures last year.

However, speculation is now rife over who will feel the pain this autumn as she juggles a deterioration in the public finances.

A widening black hole is estimated at around £20bn.

The cost of servicing government debt has risen since the last budget, while U-turns on welfare reforms and winter fuel payment cuts have made her job even harder – making further tax-raising measures inevitable.

The survey of chief financial officers for the BRC showed the biggest current fear ahead was for the “tax and regulatory burden”.

Two-thirds of the CFOs predicted further price rises in the coming year, at a time when the headline rate inflation already remains stuck way above the Bank of England’s target of 2%.

It currently stands at 3.6%.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said: “Retail was squarely in the firing line of the last budget, with the industry hit by £7bn in new costs and taxes.

“Retailers have done everything they can to shield their customers from higher costs, but given their slim margins and the rising cost of employing staff, price rises were inevitable.

“The consequences are now being felt by households as many struggle to cope with the rising cost of their weekly shop.

“It is up to the chancellor to decide whether to fan the flames of inflation, or to support the everyday economy by backing the high street and the local jobs they provide.”

She concluded: “Retail accounts for 5% of the economy yet currently pays 7.4% of business taxes and a whopping 21% of all business rates.

“It is vital the upcoming reforms offer a meaningful reduction in retailers’ rates bill, and ensures no store pays more as a result of the changes.”

The Treasury has been approached for comment.

Business

US Federal Reserve defies calls from Donald Trump to cut interest rate

Published

1 day ago

July 30, 2025

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US Federal Reserve defies calls from Donald Trump to cut interest rate

The Federal Reserve has defied calls from US President Donald Trump for a cut to the interest rate by leaving it unchanged.

The decision means it has an effective rate of 4.3%, where it has remained after the central bank, known as the Fed, reduced it three times last year.

“We’re keeping the rates high, and it’s hurting people from buying houses,” Mr Trump told reporters. “All because of the Fed.”

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Mr Trump has repeatedly been asked whether he would fire Fed chair Jerome Powell if he failed to heed his demand to cut the rate.

In June, the US president labelled Mr Powell a “stupid person” after the Fed decided not to change rates. Then less than two weeks later, in a further attack, he said the Fed’s chair should “ashamed” and would “love” him to resign.

The US president has spent months verbally attacking Mr Powell.

There were clear tensions between the pair last Thursday as they toured the Federal Reserve in Washington DC, which is undergoing renovations.

When taking questions, Mr Trump said: “I’d love him to lower interest rates,” then laughed and slapped Powell’s arm.

The US president also challenged him, in front of reporters, about an alleged overspend on the renovations and produced paperwork to prove his point. Mr Powell shook his head as Trump made the claim.

When Mr Trump was asked what he would do as a real estate mogul if this happened to one of his projects, he said he’d fire his project manager – seemingly in reference to Mr Powell.

Unlike the UK, the US interest rate is a range to guide lenders rather than a single percentage.

The Fed has expressed concern about the impact of Mr Trump’s signature economic policy of implementing new tariffs, taxes on imports to the US.

On Wednesday, the president said he was still negotiating with India on trade after announcing the US will impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from the country from Friday.

Mr Trump also signed an executive order on Wednesday implementing an additional 40% tariff on Brazil, bringing the total tariff amount to 50%, excluding certain products, including oil and precious metals.

The committee which sets rates voted 9 to 2 to keep the benchmark rate steady, the two dissenters were appointees of President Trump who believe monetary policy is too tight.

In a policy statement to explain their decision, the Federal Reserve said that “uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated” but growth “moderated in the first half of the year,” possibly bolstering the case to lower rates at a future meeting.

Nathan Thooft, chief investment officer at Manulife Investment Management, described the rate decision as a “kind of a nothing burger” and it was “widely expected”.

Tony Welch, chief investment officer at SignatureFD, agreed that it was “broadly as expected”. He added: “That explains why you’re not seeing a lot of movement in the market right now because there’s nothing that’s surprising.”