Rishi Sunak refuses to repeat Kemi Badenoch claim ex-Post Office chief is lying
Rishi Sunak has twice refused to repeat Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch's explosive claim that a former Post Office chief is lying about what the Government told him to do.
The Prime Minister was challenged to endorse the extraordinary claim Ms Badenoch made about Henry Staunton on Monday. Mr Staunton was accused of a "blatant attempt to seek revenge" after claiming he’d been ordered to stall on compensation for postmasters including Alan Bates.
At PMQs Keir Starmer asked if Mr Sunak was prepared to repeat the allegation that Mr Staunton was lying. Mr Starmer also said that an unearthed memo appears to "contradict" Ms Badenoch's statement and called on the PM to investigate.
The PM stammered: "Mr Speaker, as the Business Secretary said on Monday, she asked Henry Staunton to step down after serious concerns were raised. She set out the reasons for this and the full background in the House earlier this week." He went on to claim ministers were taking "unprecedented steps" to ensure victims of the Horizon scandal get compensation "as swiftly as possible and in full".
Mr Starmer then challenged the PM over whether the Government did order the Post Office to "go slow" on compensation. Ms Badenoch has firmly denied this and said no such instruction was ever issued.
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But a note released by Mr Staunton suggests he was ordered not to 'rip off the band aid' and said now was not the time to "deal with long term issues". Mr Starmer said: "I appreciate that the Business Secretary has put the Prime Minister in a difficult position. But will he commit to investigating this matter properly, including whether that categorical statement was correct? And why, rather than taking those accusations seriously did she on Tuesday accuse a whistleblower of lying?"
Mr Sunak swerved the question, instead stating: "This is a matter of substance, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation's history. Because people who were working hard, serving that can even had their lives and reputations destroyed."
Mr Starmer said that one of the features of the huge miscarriage of justice is that "where concerns have been raised, they've been pushed to one side". The PM faces a growing crisis after Ms Badenoch got locked in a bitter war of words with the former Post Office chief. Ms Badenoch accused him of not telling the truth, and No10 challenged him to produce evidence to support his claim.
Mr Staunton has now released notes he made of a meeting he had with the Business Department’s top civil servant in January last year. The memo claims Sarah Munby warned him that “politicians do not necessarily like to confront reality” and that “now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues”.
He emailed the note to himself and Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read at the time. Mr Staunton wrote that Ms Munby told him she "understood the 'huge commercial challenge' and the 'seriousness’ of the financial position". He added: "She described ‘all the options as unattractive’. However, ‘politicians do not necessarily like to confront reality’."
The note, shared with The Times, continued: “She said we needed to know that in the run-up to the election there was no appetite to ‘rip off the band aid’. ‘Now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues.’ We needed a plan to ‘hobble’ up to the election.”
The memo does not specifically mention compensation payments to postmasters caught up in the Horizon IT scandal. But Mr Staunton said that compensation to postmasters and replacing the Horizon system were the two biggest areas where savings could be made. The latest development comes after Ms Badenoch told MPs there was "no evidence whatsoever" of his story and said it was "a blatant attempt to seek revenge" for losing his job.
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