5. What discussions has the First Minister had with the UK Government regarding the Horizon scandal? OQ60503

Llywydd, the UK Government has at last promised action to exonerate and compensate people affected by these appalling miscarriages of justice. But the scandal illustrates wider factors in access to justice, factors highlighted in the Thomas commission report and pursued by Welsh Ministers with successive Secretaries of State for justice ever since.

Thank you, First Minister. I'd be very interested to know whether you have a sense of the scale of the injustice across Wales, and whether you'd agree that compensation and quashed convictions are long overdue and must be demanded by UK Government as soon as possible. 

Well, Llywydd, we have a sense of the scale in that we know that in every single part of Wales—from Haverfordwest in the south right to the north—there have been individuals badly affected by this scandal. We don't have definitive numbers, because we know that part of the scandal has been that there have been people who were innocent of any wrongdoing who felt obliged to plead guilty to an offence. We know that the result of the recent television programme is that more people have come forward to draw attention to the way in which they themselves were treated. So, we know that the scandal has affected every part of Wales, and what we probably know underestimates the scale of that difficulty.

Of course, as Ken Skates says, Llywydd, I want to see the UK Government come forward as fast as possible. There are hundreds of people whose lives and livelihoods have been ruined by this scandal. They need to act now. Many people will ask where they have been all these years. But now they need to act, they need to make sure that those people are properly identified and that compensation for the wrongs that have been inflicted on them is paid to them as fast as possible.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 700 sub-postmasters were convicted of fraud, theft or false accounting—the largest miscarriage of justice in UK history. In his discussion with the Hansard Society last week, former Conservative Member of Parliament and now Member of the House of Lords, James Arbuthnot, who led a parliamentary campaign to investigate malpractice at the Post Office, noted that, when he had written to the then UK Minister in 2009, he was told,

'this is a contractual separate matter for the post office. We've got a hands-off arrangement with the post office, and so it's nothing to do with the government.'

This discussion also noted that 17 UK Ministers have been responsible for the Post Office over the length of this scandal, and that the House of Lords is going to be considering the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill, which was the legislation that was promised in the King's Speech and brought forward. What representations on behalf, therefore, of affected sub-postmasters in Wales will the Welsh Government be making regarding both this and the blanket legislation announced by the Prime Minister to clear sub-postmasters convicted of wrongdoing as a result of this scandal? 

Well, Llywydd, Welsh Ministers will take every opportunity that we have to continue to raise this with UK Ministers, but we're not doing it for the first time. The Counsel General will meet with fellow Ministers across the United Kingdom later this month, and this will be a matter that will be raised with them then. The Counsel General wrote to the Secretary of State in the justice department on 1 September 2021, Llywydd. It's a letter well worth Members seeing, because it undoubtedly casts a light on a whole series of issues that have only subsequently come to public attention. It took over six months for that letter to receive a reply, and when it did it didn't come from the Ministry of Justice; it came from a Minister responsible, his letter said, for small businesses, consumers, labour markets and as Minister for London. Well, you know, I think it just tells you—it just tells you what sort of priority the UK Government had attached to this issue, when a letter from a Welsh Minister asking a series of very pertinent questions, which have since come powerfully to the surface, goes not answered for months on end and then by somebody who it's very difficult to see has a relevance to the questions that were raised in the first place.

What you're outlining there, First Minister, is definitely concerning. On a slightly other point, it's also concerning, isn't it, that Transport for Wales awarded a five-year contract in 2019 to Fujitsu, the company that designed Horizon; it's been extended to April 2026. Now, until yesterday, the Welsh Government hadn't disclosed how many other active contracts exist between the Welsh Government and Fujitsu. Could you tell me if you are now reviewing those contracts in light of the public outcry relating to what's happened at the Post Office? 

Concerns about the Horizon scandal, as you've just outlined, they were well known well before Toby Jones took on that television role. What consideration was given to those concerns before that contract was awarded? Much more crucially, will lessons now be learned? If Fujitsu are found guilty of deliberate corporate abuse, will they be blacklisted from getting any future contracts? Because that's something, I think, the public will want to know.

Well, Llywydd, first of all, the two contracts that currently exist are in their final months and will, no doubt, be reviewed as the contracts come to an end. I think the point the Member makes at the end of her question is actually quite a difficult point. I'm not sure what the legal basis could be for preventing an entirely legal company from competing for business in Wales on the basis of a failure in one part of their operation, serious as that failure certainly has been. In future, we will continue to abide within the rules that cover public procurement here in Wales. Blacklisting, I think, is both a legally questionable course of action and would have to be weighed up very carefully in the circumstances of any individual procurement case.

Can I thank Ken Skates for bringing this important question forward? I recall, First Minister, raising this scandal on numerous occasions with the Counsel General on the floor of the Chamber, particularly the number of faults that had been exposed in terms of the faults with the justice system in the United Kingdom. And one of those faults has been the unwillingness of senior executives in powerful organisations to come forward with what they knew and when they knew it. A duty of candour is absolutely essential if ordinary people in Wales are to obtain justice when challenging the establishment and powerful organisations. This is one of the key tenets of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign. I know, First Minister, that you yourself have been supportive of the campaign and the Counsel General and other Ministers within the Welsh Government, but what more can the Welsh Government do to support the Hillsborough Law Now campaign?

I thank Jack Sargeant for that, Llywydd. He's quite right: the Welsh Government has been supportive of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign. And I was very glad to see Sir Keir Starmer reaffirm the Labour Party's commitment to reform only last week. He said then that to prevent future injustices where the state is involved, not only will the next Labour Government introduce a statutory duty of candour for public services, but we will also introduce a new system where an independent public advocate can be appointed to act in the best interests of those affected.

Llywydd, I think Jack Sargeant makes a really important point. It seems to me that one of the reasons why this case has struck such a chord with the public is, of course there are the individual injustices themselves, but it is also that sense of unfairness of a very powerful, very well-resourced public authority using all the powers that it has to take on people who had none of those advantages themselves. It's that sense of unfairness, isn't it; it's of the playing field not being level between the two parties that I think has struck such a chord with people. And the Hillsborough law and the actions that the Labour Party is committed to should we form the next Government will go a long way to redressing that balance.