Speeches by Edwards.

“Some of the data that we have seen shows almost a tenfold difference between the HSS redress what the HSSA has concluded should have been the correct redress—say, from £100,000 to £1 million. Given that we have about 13% left of those cases that still need to be dealt with, would it not make more sense to have a differ…”

“So you are not going to take it on at all?”

“We heard in earlier evidence that the Post Office is supportive of transferring the HSS over to DBT, but the timeframe was cited—we have about a month until the current application deadline closes. Are you in discussions? Have you decided that that is what you are going to do? Where do you sit on that at the moment?”

“This may be a complicated question given the information that you have just shared, but how many applications have you so far had, or think you have had, relating to the Capture convictions? Actually, we probably need to broaden that and talk about software failure or automated transfer of funds perhaps, because we are…”

“I want to come back to what you mentioned earlier about ethics and about the journey that you were saying that Fujitsu is currently going through in the UK, surrounding what we might call a deficit of ethics in the scandal that we are discussing. The accounting profession has a set of standards and principles, and to b…”

“Does that not still imply, though, that the assumption is that they were convicted on the basis of software that they still potentially believe to work? Is that not sort of the default you can read into that, on the basis of that correspondence? It is pretty odd, isn’t it, to be saying, “Well, you need to give us more …”

“There is such a significant number, though, that the discrepancy suggests that the system does not quite work. The sub-postmasters have been very clear that there is a huge conflict if the person who is determining the amount of compensation to be paid out is the person who has perpetrated the entire scandal. I think t…”

“I want to come back on some of the figures we have heard. We have 1,000 convictions that were being considered, and 611 eligible. That is about a 60:40 ratio. It is an absurdly high figure of potential wrongdoing or fraud. Have there been any thoughts on what a reasonable figure is? Are we not going here on the presump…”

“Exactly.”

“So what I think you are saying is that they had not fully understood and taken into account your actual position of not being an employee.”

“So it was like a year that you were waiting?”

“We are interested in understanding more about the timeframe, the timeline, that you went through. You applied to the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme. We have heard that it took you four months, Mr Eaton. Was that something that you were expecting to take that long, and what happened to your wife in her experience of…”

“I will move on to the speed of the payments. As of November last year, 87% of all the HSS cases had received an offer—84% of late claims and 100% of original HSS cases. Given that a number of people have still not had an offer, when do you think that they will or when will you finalise those payments through the scheme…”

“At this stage, do you think that the administration should still sit with the Post Office? There are a lot of sub-postmasters who do not think that you should be administering the redress scheme at all. Obviously, there have been some discussions about whether that should be transferred to DBT. Do you think it should t…”

“That is very helpful. I have one more point on either the British Business Bank or any other institution that you have had some experience of. It has increased its target for equity finance for female entrepreneurs from 2% to 10%. Obviously, that feels like quite a lot, but it is not that much, is it?”

“You are happy for now. That is good. I guess the point is that there is movement, but perhaps we would like to see some much more ambitious targets. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on that. The current target is by 2030, so even that is a bit snail’s pace.”

“Debbie, if you wanted to add anything there, please do, and then I want to come back and ask about the role of public finance institutions, which we are starting to touch on.”

“Jordan, what is the best practice you have seen? What would you like to see brought to more prominence for people?”

“Thank you so much for setting the scene because that has been really helpful, as is the fact that we are able to have more of a conversation at the moment about those priorities. What are some of the positive things that you are seeing at the grassroots? What are those shoots that are going to help women-led businesses…”

“That is great. Finally, how are you ensuring that that is spread across the country? How are you going to be measuring whether that pipeline and that level of prospectus are meeting the objectives that we need to see across constituencies and across our different regions and nations, for that matter?”