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Former Post Office chairman Henry Staunton said it is “pretty obvious what was really going on” after the government refuted his claims that he was told to stall compensation to Horizon scandal victims.

In a new statement issued to Sky News, Mr Staunton insisted there was “no real movement” on the payouts until after the airing of ITV drama Mr Bates Vs the Post Office earlier this year.

He said: “It was in the interests of the business as well as being fair for the postmasters that there was faster progress on exoneration and that compensation was more generous, but we didn’t see any real movement until after the Mr Bates programme.

“I think it is pretty obvious to everyone what was really going on.”

It comes as the government is facing demands to release all documents relating to Mr Staunton’s sacking to provide clarity on the allegations.

A war of words broke out on Sunday after Mr Staunton claimed that when he was sacked last month, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch had told him “someone’s got to take the rap” for the Post Office scandal.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, he also claimed he was told to delay pay-outs to subpostmasters ahead of the next general election due to concerns about costs.

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The government denied the compensation claims, while Ms Badenoch wrote on X that Mr Staunton’s comments were a “disgraceful misrepresentation” of their conversation when he was sacked.

The business department also published a letter sent to Mr Staunton after his appointment which said one of his priorities should be to resolve historic litigation issues relating to the Horizon software.

However, Labour said the allegations were “truly shocking” and there are “clear discrepancies” in the accounts of Mr Staunton’s short time as chairman.

Mr Staunton only became chairman of the Post Office in December 2022, but he was ousted last month as the government reeled from the backlash of its handling of the Horizon scandal.

Henry Staunton
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Henry Staunton

This saw hundreds of subpostmasters prosecuted because of discrepancies in the Horizon IT system between 1999 and 2015, in what has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history.

The airing of Mr Bates Vs the Post Office last month led to widespread outrage and promises from the government to introduce a new law to exonerate all victims and speed up the compensation process.

In a letter to Ms Badenoch on Monday, shadow business secretary Jonathon Reynolds said in order to “truly ascertain the veracity” of Mr Staunton’s allegations, she should publish all correspondence and minutes of meetings between her department and the Post Office since the High Court’s 2019 ruling that there had been bugs and errors in the IT system.

He also asked Ms Badenoch to explicitly confirm whether any civil servant told Mr Staunton to stall on compensation payments so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability.

Mr Staunton claimed he received this direction from a senior figure in Whitehall, but a spokesman for the government said on Sunday it “utterly” refuted the claim and Mr Staunton was in fact given “concrete objectives” to focus on reaching settlements.

Kemi Badenoch MP denies she is in an 'evil plotters' Whatsapp group
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Kemi Badenoch

Government ‘focused on compensation’

Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake has also told Sky News he “does not recognise” claims of trying to slow down compensation.

He said: “We’ve been very focused on getting that compensation out the door as quickly as possible.

“We’ve done much to try and accelerate those payments over the time Henry Staunton was in office so I don’t recognise what he’s saying and I’m bit confused why he’s saying it.”

He added that he was not on the call when Mr Staunton was sacked but Ms Badenoch has been “very clear that the version of events that she read in the paper was nothing like the version that she had from the notes that were taken on that call”.

“Clearly, Henry Staunton sees it differently. You’d have to ask him why he’s saying those things. It doesn’t accord with the situation as I see it.”

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Why sack Post Office chair after a year?

In his interview, Mr Staunton also alleged that Post Office chief executive Nick Read wrote to the government with legal opinion from the Post Office’s solicitors, Peters & Peters, that in more than 300 cases convictions were supported by evidence not related to the Horizon software.

In his letter Mr Reynolds said: “Prior to yesterday, it was my profound belief that every MP and everyone in Westminster was working on the commons goals to exonerate all remaining wrongful convictions and deliver fair compensation to all those affected as quickly as possible. If true, these revelations completely undermine that notion.

“If there is even the slightest truth to accusations that justice has been obfuscated for political reasons, there must be consequences. I hope that you will do everything in your gift to provide subpostmasters with the confidences they need to know that this was not the case.”

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Post Office scandal explained

The call was echoed by the Liberal Democrats, who said the government “must be fully transparent and publish any documents relating to these extremely serious allegations”.

Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said: “Ministers have been dragging their feet over getting victims swift and fair compensation for far too long. Political game playing should have absolutely no role in trying to right this wrong, we need to get the victims of this scandal the justice and compensation they deserve.”

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Poundland owner drafts in advisers amid discounter crisis

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Poundland owner drafts in advisers amid discounter crisis

The owner of Poundland, one of Britain’s biggest discount retailers, has drafted in City advisers to explore radical options for arresting the growing crisis at the chain.

Sky News has learnt that Pepco Group, which has owned Poundland since 2016, has hired consultants from AlixPartners to address a sales slump which has raised questions over its future ownership.

City sources said this weekend that the crisis would prompt Pepco to explore more fundamental for Poundland, including a formal restructuring process that could prompt significant store closures, or even an attempt to sell the business.

AlixPartners is understood to have been formally engaged last week, with options including a company voluntary arrangement or restructuring plan said to have been floated by a range of advisers on a highly preliminary basis.

Sources close to the group said no decisions had been taken, and that the immediate focus was on improving Poundland’s cash performance and reviving the chain’s customer proposition.

A sale process was not under way, they added.

Poundland trades from 825 stores across the UK, competing with the likes of Home Bargains, B&M and Poundstretcher, as well as Britain’s major supermarket chains.

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Last year, the British discounter recorded roughly €2bn of sales.

It employs roughly 18,000 people.

Earlier this week, Pepco Group, the Warsaw-listed retail giant which also trades as Pepco and Dealz in Europe, said Poundland had seen a like-for-like sales slump of 7.3% during the Christmas trading period.

In its trading statement, Pepco said that Poundland had suffered “a more difficult sales environment and consumer backdrop in the UK, alongside margin pressure and an increasingly higher operating cost environment”.

“We expect that the toughest comparative quarter for Poundland is now behind us – the same quarter last year represented a period prior to the changes made within our clothing and GM [general merchandise] ranges – and therefore, we expect the negative sales performance for Poundland to moderate as we move through the year.”

It added that Poundland would not increase the size of its store portfolio on a net basis during the course of this year.

“We are continuing a comprehensive assessment of Poundland to recover trading and get the business back to its core strengths, including undertaking a thorough assessment of all costs across the business, as well as evaluating its overall competitive positioning,” it added.

The appointment of AlixPartners came several weeks after Stephan Borchert, the Pepco Group chief executive, said he would consider “every strategic option” for reviving Poundland’s performance.

He is expected to set out formal plans for the future of Poundland, along with the rest of the group, at a capital markets day in Poland on 6 March.

Among the measures the company has already taken to halt the chain’s declining performance have been to increase the range of FMCG and general merchandise products sold at its traditional £1 price-point.

Poundland’s crisis contrasts with the health of the rest of the group, with Pepco and Dealz both showing strong sales growth.

A spokesman for Pepco Group, which has a market capitalisation equivalent to about £1.7bn, declined to comment further on the appointment of advisers

AlixPartners also declined to comment.

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FTSE 100 closes at record high

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FTSE 100 closes at record high

The UK’s benchmark stock index has reached another record high.

The FTSE 100 index of most valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange closed at 8,505.69, breaking the record set last May.

It had already broken its intraday high at 8532.58 on Friday afternoon, meaning it reached a high not seen before during trading hours.

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The weakened pound has boosted many of the 100 companies forming the top-flight index.

Why is this happening?

Most are not based in the UK, so a less valuable pound means their sterling-priced shares are cheaper to buy for people using other currencies, typically US dollars.

This makes the shares better value, prompting more to be bought. This greater demand has brought up the prices and the FTSE 100.

The pound has been hovering below $1.22 for much of Friday. It’s steadily fallen from being worth $1.34 in late September.

Also spurring the new record are market expectations for more interest rate cuts in 2025, something which would make borrowing cheaper and likely kickstart spending.

What is the FTSE 100?

The index is made up of many mining and international oil and gas companies, as well as household name UK banks and supermarkets.

Familiar to a UK audience are lenders such as Barclays, Natwest, HSBC and Lloyds and supermarket chains Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s.

Other well-known names include Rolls-Royce, Unilever, easyJet, BT Group and Next.

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FTSE stands for Financial Times Stock Exchange.

If a company’s share price drops significantly it can slip outside of the FTSE 100 and into the larger and more UK-based FTSE 250 index.

The inverse works for the FTSE 250 companies, the 101st to 250th most valuable firms on the London Stock Exchange. If their share price rises significantly they could move into the FTSE 100.

A good close for markets

It’s a good end of the week for markets, entirely reversing the rise in borrowing costs that plagued Chancellor Rachel Reeves for the past ten days.

Fears of long-lasting high borrowing costs drove speculation she would have to cut spending to meet self-imposed fiscal rules to balance the budget and bring down debt by 2030.

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They Treasury tries to calm market nerves late last week

Long-term government borrowing had reached a high not seen since 1998 while the benchmark 10-year cost of government borrowing, as measured by 10-year gilt yields, was at levels last seen around the 2008 financial crisis.

The gilt yield is effectively the interest rate investors demand to lend money to the UK government.

Only the pound has yet to recover the losses incurred during the market turbulence. Without that dropped price, however, the FTSE 100 record may not have happened.

Also acting to reduce sterling value is the chance of more interest rates. Currencies tend to weaken when interest rates are cut.

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Trump tariff threat prompts IMF warning ahead of inauguration

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Trump tariff threat prompts IMF warning ahead of inauguration

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned against the prospects of a renewed US-led trade war, just days before Donald Trump prepares to begin his second term in the White House.

The world’s lender of last resort used the latest update to its World Economic Outlook (WEO) to lay out a series of consequences for the global outlook in the event Mr Trump carries out his threat to impose tariffs on all imports into the United States.

Canada, Mexico, and China have been singled out for steeper tariffs that could be announced within hours of Monday’s inauguration.

Mr Trump has been clear he plans to pick up where he left off in 2021 by taxing goods coming into the country, making them more expensive, in a bid to protect US industry and jobs.

He has denied reports that a plan for universal tariffs is set to be watered down, with bond markets recently reflecting higher domestic inflation risks this year as a result.

While not calling out Mr Trump explicitly, the key passage in the IMF’s report nevertheless cautioned: “An intensification of protectionist policies… in the form of a new wave of tariffs, could exacerbate trade tensions, lower investment, reduce market efficiency, distort trade flows, and again disrupt supply chains.

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Trump’s threat of tariffs explained

“Growth could suffer in both the near and medium term, but at varying degrees across economies.”

In Europe, the EU has reason to be particularly worried about the prospect of tariffs, as the bulk of its trade with the US is in goods.

The majority of the UK’s exports are in services rather than physical products.

The IMF’s report also suggested that the US would likely suffer the least in the event that a new wave of tariffs was enacted due to underlying strengths in the world’s largest economy.

Read more: What Trump’s tariffs could mean for rest of the world

The WEO contained a small upgrade to the UK growth forecast for 2025.

It saw output growth of 1.6% this year – an increase on the 1.5% figure it predicted in October.

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Economists see public sector investment by the Labour government providing a boost to growth but a more uncertain path for contributions from the private sector given the budget’s £25bn tax raid on businesses.

Business lobby groups have widely warned of a hit to investment, pay and jobs from April as a result, while major employers, such as retailers, have been most explicit on raising prices to recover some of the hit.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said of the IMF’s update: “The UK is forecast to be the fastest growing major European economy over the next two years and the only G7 economy, apart from the US, to have its growth forecast upgraded for this year.

“I will go further and faster in my mission for growth through intelligent investment and relentless reform, and deliver on our promise to improve living standards in every part of the UK through the Plan for Change.”

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