Speeches by Thomas.

“As I understand it, the amount of interest in fixed-sum payments, for example, had not been taken into account in previous estimates—certainly, the HCRS had not been taken into account in those estimates—and that is what led the Chancellor, in discussion with the OBR, to set the £1.8 billion figure. That is not a limit…”

“If a first offer is made, but the individual victims are not happy with that first offer, we will none the less pay 80% of that first offer—which is my point about substantial redress by the end of March. We need to recognise that each claim has to be treated on its own merits, and we will do that going forward. I thin…”

“I am not saying—”

“Whether or not someone goes to court is an individual decision for people; it is the responsibility of Government to try and make the compensation processes work as well as is feasible. We are talking regularly, as I have made clear, to the claimants’ lawyers, both for the GLO scheme and more generally, to look at what…”

“On the GLO scheme, the accountability mechanism, if you like, against which the Department is judged is that we have to give 90% of first offers within 40 working days, and we are confident that we are meeting that at the moment. What we are also saying now is that if an offer is challenged, we will commit to getting 9…”

“I will come back to the GLO scheme in just a second. I am thinking of the experience of one of my constituents who only narrowly avoided missing the original deadline for the HSS. We are still seeing people coming forward to claim for the Horizon shortfall scheme in particular, so I am wary of imposing a deadline at th…”

“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.”