Post Office scandal shows that national politics really can’t be kept out of what happens locally

It’s independent West Norfolk Councillor Jo Rust’s turn to write our weekly Friday Politics column…

I’m sure that many of you, like me, have been outraged at the scandal of the Post Office accounting system – Horizon, and the injustices inflicted on innocent people who were working in post offices all over the country.

This national scandal hasn’t missed our area of Norfolk. I know several people who have been personally affected by this issue. National politics really can’t be kept out of what happens locally, it has a direct impact. Although our MP wrote about the scandal in his column last week, he failed to acknowledge the part that his government has played in it.

The Conservative-led government, which started as a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, has known about this matter for over a decade and yet has been shamefully slow to take the necessary action. For those of you who have missed this story, the post office introduced a new accounting system in 1999. It didn’t take long before sub-post office staff became aware that the system was flawed and was showing money going missing, which was not in fact the case.

These sub-post office staff were being forced to ‘repay’ money out of their own pockets, money which was not actually missing. What I think many would find so shocking is that the Conservative-led government has direct links with both the Post Office (which of course, is a government-controlled organisation) and Fujitsu, the company which made the IT system that is at the root of the scandal.

The government has a direct seat on the board of the Post Office. It also has another seat through its investment group. This means that there were two individuals from the government who oversaw this scandal and did nothing about it.

The CEO of the Post Office from 2012 until 2019 was Paula Vennells. She was awarded a CBE in 2019 for her services to the Post Office, an award that she only returned this week due to public pressure, despite a campaign that has been running since 2021 to have her stripped of it.

What many won’t be aware of is that on leaving the Post Office Paula Vennells sat as a non-executive board member of the Conservative Government Cabinet Office. The links between the Conservative Government and the scandal are actually far deeper than this though.

The husband of Gillian Keegan, the Conservative MP who is responsible for Education, was the CEO of Fujitsu, the company at the centre of the scandal. Fujitsu is a partner of Infosys and Infosys is owned by the Prime Minister’s wife’s family. So it is any wonder that this injustice was allowed to run and run? There was no political will to rectify something that has impacted the lives of so many people because those at the top of our country were complicit in it.

It’s easy for local politicians to try and distance themselves from the national government and the party that they pay a membership fee to belong to. But, as I stated at the start, national politics directly impacts the lives of us at a local level, the two can’t be separated.

It’s also astounding that an organisation like the Post Office has the power to prosecute people without a police investigation. This organisation brought private prosecutions which led to innocent people spending time in prison. This scandal has stripped families of their homes, reputations, and livelihoods. Children have seen their parents imprisoned for crimes that they did not commit.

And where has that money, which was not missing, gone? Post Office staff repaid money which was not missing, so who has got that? This is not as simple as paying a financial sum to compensate staff for what they have financially lost, because this isn’t solely about finances.

It’s no real surprise that only a week after the drama was aired on ITV the Prime Minister has announced that all those wrongly accused will be exonerated. After all, there’s going to be a General Election later in the year. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Be careful who you vote for.