Speeches by Thomas.

“We have made it clear to the Post Office that they need to be working with us to help find solutions to the challenges around the Horizon shortfall scheme. We have encouraged the Post Office to write to anybody who they think might be a victim and who might be eligible for the Horizon shortfall scheme, so we are seeing…”

“Our sense has been that there is significant interest in the fixed-sum payment route. People can make a decision themselves as to whether they want to go down the route of taking the £75,000 or to have their claim fully assessed.”

“I am reluctant to put a deadline on the GLO scheme, and indeed compensation schemes more generally, at the moment.”

“It probably is a yes, Mr Byrne.”

“We have encouraged them to look again at how much they are paying and what they are asking lawyers to do, let me put it like that. Certainly, we think some of the tasks the lawyers are doing could be done in a less costly way.”

“As I alluded to earlier, we are trying to take a number of steps to speed up the compensation process. Where we have concerns about the cost of legal advice, as we very much do with some of the lawyers the Post Office is currently using, we have been clear to make our concerns crystal clear to the Post Office going for…”

“I am not going to comment on what went before other than to say that what I have been clear about is that we want a faster compensation process, but one that still delivers full and fair settlements. There are people who have been deeply traumatised by this.”

““Arming up”? Absolutely, I would be very uncomfortable with that sort of phrase.”

“There is a set of published guidelines, as we have made clear already. We expect the teams looking at cases that are brought forward to work according to those principles. But as we have already discussed, where people believe they want to avoid a longer process and are confident that the fixed-sum payment is appropria…”

“We were discussing earlier the merits of having someone independent who can look at claims, and Sir Ross is, at the end of the process, the independent person on the GLO scheme who can look at whether claims are being prepared in a fair way. We think it is right, on the GLO scheme, that we have him in place. There is a…”

“The offer of a fixed-sum payment of £600,000 is available under HCRS. That is a different scheme. Your eligibility for HCRS is determined by whether you have had a conviction that has been overturned by Parliament. As soon as someone receives a letter from the Ministry of Justice or one of the devolved Administrations,…”

“Actively, now, we want those requests for further information to help the claimants. We have a responsibility for public money, but the overriding imperative is to make sure that those people who we know have been victims of the Horizon scandal get as full and fair a settlement as is feasible.”

“I would certainly hope not, but let me write to the Committee.”

“To lift it up.”

“What I would say to you, Mr Byrne, is that we are working at pace to try to get more compensation out of the door to more victims more quickly, and we do need access to legal advice to help us do that. There is more we need to do, and we recognise that—some of the measures we have taken since we came into office are de…”

“Just to be clear, under the Horizon shortfall scheme, there is the option of a fixed-sum payment of £75,000—”

“To continue down the Horizon shortfall scheme, many victims will decide that they want a full assessment of their individual circumstances and the compensation they are entitled to; they are fully entitled to go down that route. They will give initial indications of what they think they suffered. They are then entitled…”

“Mr Byrne, I am quite happy to look at any recommendations the Committee wants to bring forward in this regard. Our instinct has been that for victims of the Horizon shortfall scheme who want to avoid a longer process, the fixed-sum payment is a way to offer quicker redress. Every victim’s experience has been very diffe…”

“They are our independent advisers. They help independently assess the claims in order to move things forward, so they play an important role. In terms of the GLO process, we are hearing in the conversations we have had with claimants’ lawyers that the vast majority of the remaining cases in the GLO group are likely to …”

“We have looked at the Horizon shortfall scheme and at what we could do to speed the process up and to begin to address some of the questions that people have asked about the fairness of their offers through the scheme. The fixed-sum payment is an attempt to offer quicker redress for a significant number of people, but …”