Conservative leader and former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has told the Post Office inquiry that “government machine” bureaucracy slowed down compensation claims for wrongly convicted subpostmasters.

Badenoch claimed that after being appointed Business Secretary in February 2023, she “wanted to get the money out,” but government officials “always gave her a reason why we couldn’t.”

In his testimony before the consultationHe said the Post Office would have “gone in its current form a long time ago” if it were a private organization, adding that it is a “20th century organization that is struggling to evolve in a 21st century world.”

Here are the key takeaways from what we learned in the inquest evidence on Monday:

Badenoch “wanted faster compensation” for subpostmasters

Badenoch told the inquiry that when she became Business Secretary she was vaguely aware of the Horizon scandal but was not familiar with “all the details”.

The Conservative leader said she quickly became frustrated at the slowness with which compensation claims for wrongly convicted subpostmasters were being processed.

More than 900 sub-administrators were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it appear that money was missing from their accounts.

Hundreds of people are still waiting for compensation despite the previous government announcing that those whose convictions were overturned are entitled to payments of £600,000.

Read next

She said: “I feel like there’s often too much bureaucracy in the way things are done, because people are worried about the process.”

A letter shown to the Post Office inquiry shows Badenoch wrote to then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt in August 2023 asking for the financial redress process to be speeded up for subpostmasters caught up in the Horizon scandal.

Badenoch says the then Post Office Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, “had come to me on several occasions to say he was having trouble communicating with the Treasury” about the issue.

She says she wanted to “overcome the bureaucracy” she faced and described the “government machine” as holding her back.

Explaining why she felt bureaucracy was getting in her way, Ms Badenoch said: “They (government officials) are worried: if things go wrong, they will have to pay for it. “So they carry out a lot of checks and balances far beyond what I think is necessary to achieve the right outcome.”

Asked if he thinks he should have raised his concerns with the Treasury within six months of his first appointment, he added: “I wouldn’t have known enough. “This letter comes after a period of frustration because things are not happening.”

ITV drama ‘reprioritised’ Horizon claims within government

Badenoch told the inquest she was “extremely disappointed” that the ITV drama was necessary. Mr Bates v the Post Officewhich was first issued in January 2024, to expedite payments to wrongfully convicted subpostmasters.

He told Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, that the drama “changed the priority of the issue (Horizon), which was behind the NHS and security etc, to something we needed to resolve now. “Prioritization increased.”

Beer said it was “disappointing” to hear that a TV drama was needed to get the government to change its priorities.

“It’s extremely disappointing,” Badenoch said. “I think if you look at it in the context of what is happening in the government, there are a thousand things that money is requested for. After a while, decision makers become very dispassionate. It becomes just another line in the ledger.

“It’s not irrational but it has to change, it doesn’t help either. There is a lack of common sense in much of Whitehall. They don’t trust their judgment. “People want legal coverage.”

Badenoch wanted ‘fixed offers’ of £100,000 to speed up compensation

The inquiry was told that Badenoch had told the Treasury that he wanted to make “fixed offers” of £100,000 to all subpostmasters entitled to compensation to speed up the process.

When asked if this could be seen as “posturing,” he responded: “I was pointing out the direction I wanted the department to go to make it very clear.”

The Conservative leader said she believed speed should trump accuracy, even if it had not represented good value for money for the taxpayer.

Badenoch told the inquest that she had felt it was important to her “to be seen to do the right thing” in the Horizon scandal, following previous delays in securing compensation and having convictions overturned.

She said: “In my opinion, being seen doing the right thing is just as important as doing the right thing.

“Explanations and excuses for why things take so long should not last more than a few weeks or months.”

Asked that surely doing the right thing is more important than being seen doing it, she said: “Both things are important. Doing the right thing when no one knows you’re doing it often creates problems elsewhere.

“As a politician, it is not enough to do the right thing; It is also important to be seen to be doing the right thing.

“Perception also matters, otherwise trust is lost.”

“Significant increase in pace” of compensation since elections

Before Badenoch’s statement, his successor as Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the inquiry that he believes the speed at which compensation claims are processed has increased since the Labor government was elected in July.

Reynolds told the inquiry there had been a “significant increase in the rate at which compensation has been paid” since the general election, and told the inquiry he did not believe it had been “at the expense of fair compensation being awarded or precise.”

He said: “The first thing I would say is that I understand that, quite rightly, there has been a lot of analysis in this inquiry about whether there is a tension between a fair remedy and the speed with which it is granted, and I understand why that is of great importance for the work being carried out here.

“Since the general election, there has been a significant increase in the rate at which compensation is paid.

“The overall amount of compensation has increased in the last four months by approximately a third, and the number of claims for which an initial offer has been made in response to that claim has approximately doubled in the last four months compared to which had been in the four months prior to the general elections.”

The Business Secretary said the Post Office’s corporate culture is key to the Horizon scandal, but insisted the organization remains “an incredibly important institution in national life”.

Commenting on the culture within the Post Office in his witness statement to the inquiry, he said: “It is clear that the corporate culture of the Post Office is at the root of this scandal, and I want to make sure the system works.” for subpostmasters.

“I support a reform agenda that seeks to turn this ambition into reality.”