Victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have been urged to take legal action against the government over compensation delays.

In an email to victims seen by Sky News, Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates suggested it would be November 2027 before all the claims are finished based on the current rate of progress.

He told them going to court was “probably the quickest way to ensure fairness for all”.

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Hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongfully prosecuted for theft and false accounting after Fujitsu-made accounting software Horizon inaccurately generated financial shortfalls, making it appear money was missing from Post Offices across the UK.

Many other sub-postmasters were made bankrupt, suffered ill health and experienced relationship breakdowns as a result of the falsely generated shortfalls and how the Post Office, a state-owned company, responded.

‘Lawyers taking every opportunity to challenge’

Compensation claims are processed through schemes administered by the Department of Business and Trade (DBT).

Sir Alan said one scheme in particular – the group litigation order (GLO) scheme for the 555 people who successfully took legal action against the Post Office and exposed the scandal – was “a mess”.

“Advice on how to streamline and speed up the scheme which has been offered to the DBT by ourselves, your lawyers and even the DBT Select Committee is ignored out of hand with the feeblest of excuses,” he said.

The government disputed the forecast by Sir Alan that it would take until 2027 for all claims to be settled and said it was “settling claims at a faster rate than ever before”.

The problem was not unique to the GLO scheme, Sir Alan said, saying administration and application problems beset all four plans for victims impacted in different ways by the miscarriage of justice.

The majority of applicants have had “substantially undervalued offers” from the government, Sir Alan said.

“The DBT lawyers appear to be taking every opportunity to challenge figures when the DBT has already paid for your lawyers to test and verify the claims before they are submitted.

“It appears that the DBT will pay out the smaller claims of about 60 to 80% of value, but the larger, which form the bulk of the outstanding claims, are continually being fought by DBT’s lawyers.”

Read more:
Sub-postmasters still going through hell, lead campaigner Sir Alan Bates says
Sir Alan Bates tells PM ‘clock is ticking’ on compensation for Horizon victims

More information is regularly sought from the victim, which Sir Alan said was “obviously not available” and delayed compensation offers.

“They also seem to be reducing offers by 50% where a spouse is involved, and it seems they will use almost any other tactic to ensure that the DBT does not have to pay out what has already been verified before the claim was submitted.”

Citing figures from the department, Sir Alan’s email said 66 cases had been fully settled in the last six months, with 210 yet to be settled.

The ‘quickest way to fairness’

Sir Alan suggested legal action was the “quickest way to ensure fairness for all”, though he acknowledged that “returning to the courts may seem to be a long haul”.

“There may be other options but the one which is repeatedly mentioned is a judicial review, not just for the GLO Scheme but to include all of the schemes to ensure there is parity in the way victims have, and are, being treated,” the email said.

A new legal action may be appropriate for people who have accepted offers, Sir Alan said, “a new legal action may well be a way of having your claim reassessed once more, this time by the courts”.

Victims from each scheme would need to come forward to move the campaign on, Sir Alan said, as he urged people to “step up”.

A national fundraising campaign may be needed to cover the costs of this action, the email added, which Sir Alan said he may be able to help set up.

The government had said in October 2023 it was “determined to deliver” the GLO scheme by August 2024 and last year rejected a March 2025 deadline sought by campaigners for all payments to be finalised.

“We will be able to get substantial redress paid out to those individuals by the end of March”, Post Office minister Gareth Thomas told the Commons in December.

Government ‘does not accept forecast’

Responding to Sir Alan’s suggestion it would take until 2027 to settle all claims, a government spokesperson said, “we do not accept this forecast”.

“The facts show we are making almost 90% of initial GLO offers within 40 working days of receiving completed claims. As of 31 March, 76% of the group had received full and final redress, or 80% of their offer.”

“So long as claimants respond reasonably promptly, we would expect to settle all claims by the end of this year.

“We have trebled the number of payments under this government and are settling claims at a faster rate than ever before to provide full and fair redress.”

The pace of wage rises has slowed and came in lower than expected, official figures show.

Both average weekly earnings and wages excluding bonuses came in lower than expected, a boost to interest rate setters at the Bank of England, potentially opening the door for steeper borrowing cost deductions.

There was no change at all in the growth of average weekly earnings, which continued to rise 5.6%, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the three months to February.

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Wages excluding bonuses continued to grow far above the rate of inflation at 5.9%, the ONS said, but below City forecasts.

Economists polled by the Reuters news agency had expected average weekly earnings to rise 5.7% and for wages excluding bonuses to top 6%.

The wage data does not capture the national minimum wage rise, which came into effect on 1 April.

Nevertheless, wage growth was described as “strong” by the ONS. While private sector pay was “little changed”, public sector growth accelerated as pay rises fed through to headline figures. Public sector pay rose by 5.7%, up from 5.2% a month earlier.

What does it mean for interest rates?

The figures are likely to be a boost to the Bank of England, which had been concerned about the inflationary impact of speedily rising wages.

A cut is widely expected when members of the Monetary Policy Committee meet next month. They’re anticipated to reduce the rate to 4.25%.

The Bank of England, as the UK’s central bank, is mandated to bring inflation down to 2% by increasing or decreasing interest rates, which can stimulate or suppress growth by controlling how cheap or expensive it is to borrow money.

How’s the jobs market faring?

The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.4%.

The ONS, however, has advised caution in interpreting changes in the monthly unemployment rate due to concerns over the figures’ reliability.

The exact number of unemployed people is unknown, partly because people don’t answer the phone when the ONS calls.

There are signs, however, of cautious hiring as job vacancies fell to pre-pandemic levels for the first time since 2021.

As well as rising minimum wages, there are increased costs for employers in the form of higher national insurance contributions.

The company which prints banknotes for the Bank of England is on the brink of an historic takeover that would see it owned by private equity investors for the first time since it was founded 212 years ago.

Sky News has learnt that Atlas Holdings, a US-based buyout firm, is in advanced talks about a 130p-a-share offer for De La Rue.

The London-listed company’s leading investors are understood to have been asked to provide irrevocable undertakings to accept the offer, with one shareholder saying that a deal recommended by De La Rue’s board was likely to be announced as early as Tuesday morning.

If completed, a takeover deal would end nearly 80 years of De La Rue’s status as a London Stock Exchange-listed business, having made its public company debut in 1947.

Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, Atlas Holdings focuses on acquiring companies in sectors such as industrials, trading and energy.

Among the businesses it owns in Europe are London-based graphic and creative services agency ASG and Bovis, a British construction services group.

Banking sources said the 130p-a-share offer for De La Rue would represent a robust premium to a price which sank below 50p in mid-2023, but which has since recovered to close at 112p on Monday evening.

Atlas Holdings is understood to have drafted in bankers from Lazard to advise it, while De La Rue is being advised by Deutsche Numis.

The offer from Atlas Holdings does not include De La Rue’s authentication division, which is being sold to US-listed Crane NXT in a £300m transaction which took a further step towards completion last week.

The proceeds from that deal have been earmarked to repay loans and reduce its pension scheme deficit.

De La Rue’s currency arm prints money for a large number of central banks around the world, including in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe.

It has printing sites in the UK, Kenya, Malta and Sri Lanka.

In 2020, the Bank of England announced that it had extended De La Rue’s contract from the end of 2025 until 2028.

At the time, there were 4.4bn Bank of England notes in circulation with a collective value of about £82bn.

De La Rue has been running a formal sale process under Takeover Panel rules, with a string of parties said to have expressed an interest in it since the period began late last year.

Among its potential suitors has been Edi Truell, the prominent City financier and pensions entrepreneur, who tabled a 125p-a-share proposal in January.

De La Rue’s directors have been exploring options in recent months to maximise value for long-suffering shareholders, including a standalone sale of the currency-printing business or other proposals to acquire the entire company.

The group’s balance sheet has been under strain for years, with doubts at one point about whether it could stave off insolvency.

After being beset by a series of corporate mishaps, including a string of profit warnings, a public row with its auditor and challenges in its operations in countries including India and Kenya, it was forced to seek breathing space from pension trustees by deferring tens of millions of pounds of payments into its retirement scheme.

Soon after that, the company parachuted in Clive Whiley, a seasoned corporate troubleshooter, as chairman, with a mandate to repair its battered finances.

Since then, its stock has recovered strongly, and is up 37% over the last year.

De La Rue traces its roots back to 1813, when Thomas De La Rue established a printing business.

Eight years later, he began producing straw hats and then moved into printing stationery, according to an official history of the company.

Its first paper money was produced for the government of Mauritius in 1860, and in 1914 it began printing 10-shilling notes for the UK government on the outbreak of the First World War.

De la Rue has been contacted for comment, while Atlas Holdings could not be reached for comment on Monday evening.