Post Office Inquiry - live: CEO Nick Read hints many feel former leader Paula Vennells not held to account

Post Office chief executive Nick Read has agreed that the government is using the Post Office as shield from criticism.

He was asked by a lawyer representing wronged postmasters if “the government is using the Post Office as a shield or fire curtain”. Mr Read responded: “That could be a description, yes.”

When asked if the government is able to “detach themselves from the criticism of the Post Office”, Mr Read said: “That’s true”. He added: “They are one step removed but at the same time hold the levers of funding.”

Mr Read is being asked about the delays to compensation for wronged postmasters and the meagre amounts offered.

Mr Read said he did believe that the government have now “put their mouth where there money is [sic]”. He said he “didn’t believe that the government have been tight with the purse strings”, but he acknowledged that the process had been “overly bureaucratic”.

Chief executive Nick Read has told the inquiry that the Post Office “hadn’t lived up” to promises to give wronged postmasters speedy compnsation.

He said: “Speedy and fair redress is essential to protect the longterm interests of the Post Office and obviously the relationship between the Post Office and the victims of the scandal. We haven’t lived up to that and that is of deep regret.”

Chief executive Nick Read has been confronted with statistics that show that 263 subpostmasters have died since being wrongly accused of stealing money.

Of these 263 people, 251 died before receiving compensation, according to freedom of information data obtained by The Times.

Mr Read said it was a “terrible statistic”. When told that 251 of these people had never received an apology before their death, Mr Read said it was a “terrible situation”.

He was asked by a lawyer representing subpostmasters and their families: “Has the Post Office made any study as to why the process is so slow? And as to whether the lawyers are responsible for the delay?”

Mr Read replied: “We are acutely conscious... We spend a lot of time trying to work out, how do we improve and speed up the process. That is a constant point of conversation between myself and the minister and others.”

Chief executive Nick Read has said that people would “take confidence” from the fact that he was investigated for misconduct.

He told the Horizon IT inquiry that the investigation into his conduct showed that “no one is above the law in the Post Office.” He explained: “Those whistleblowing allegations that were made against me were followed through with a fairly comprehensive investigation.

“None of the allegations, I may hasten to add, were upheld. But colleagues would have taken confidence that it was possible to investigate the chief executive and the chairman, irrespective of what else was going on in the organisation and that those went through to their natural conclusions.”

Chief executive Nick Read has revealed the top four questions that are asked of him when he visits Post Offices today.

He told the inquiry the top questions from postmasters were:

What are we doing for remuneration? [postmasters’ pay]

What are we doing by way of innovation, what other products can we sell?

What is happening to the brand as a consequence of the scandal?

What is happening to my long-term investment in a Post Office?

Postmasters need to be recognised for the important role that they play within their communities, Nick Read has said.

The inquiry is now considering the future of the Post Office and the nature of its relationship with the government.

Mr Read told the inquiry: “When you look at the role that postmasters play in communities up and down the country, when you look at the level of trust between communities and postmasters, it is quite extraordinary.”

He added that “postmasters should be recognised for that contribution, where they currently aren’t.”

Mr Read added that the Post Office have been asking the government for a clearer strategy for their future. “There is a desire to have a long-term strategy for the Post Office from which everything else will flow,” he said.

The inquiry has returned after the lunch breach and Mr Read is being asked about the government’s priorities for the Post Office in 2023/ 24.

The inquiry has been shown a letter from minister Kevin Hollinrake to chairman Henry Staunton on 29th June 2023, titled strategic priorities for 23/24.

In the list of priorities set out by the government, the level of pay for postmasters is not included as a concern.

Mr Read was asked why this is, given that recent surveys of postmasters show their number one concern is the level of their pay.

He told the inquiry: “I assume they [the government] take it as given as that being the top priority of the job.”

Mr Hollinrake’s letter lists the government’s first priority as “effective financial management and performance, including management of legal costs, to ensure medium term viability”.

He goes on to list the requirement to “maintain stringent cost control”.

When pushed on whether this is in conflict with any desire to increase remuneration of subposters, Mr Read said: “Potentially”.

The inquiry had previously heard that Mr Read had received over £750,000 a year for his CEO role and had been pushing to increase this to over £1.1m.

The inquiry has now taken a break over lunch. It will be back at 1:45pm for the second half of Mr Read’s evidence.

Chief executive Nick Read has told the inquiry that there is a feeling within the Post Office that former leaders “appear not to have been held to account”.

In apparent reference to former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells, he told the inquiry: “I think one of the themes that has emerged amongst colleagues still working within the organisation is that many of the leaders of the organisation - historically - who have appeared before this inquiry, appear not to have been held to account.

“If indeed they were aware of and understood other issues associated with Horizon in the past, I think there was very definitely a view amongst the bigger community that people were going about doing their job and we needed to be sensitive to the fact that people were going about doing their job to the best of their ability and with what they knew.”

Former business minister Kevin Hollinrake told Post Office CEO Nick Read that he wanted former chairman Henry Staunton to “be discredited”, according to a note of a meeting shown to the Horizon IT inquiry.

A note of a meeting between Mr Hollinrake and Mr Read dated 29th February 2024 was shown to the inquiry.

Mr Hollinrake, who was at the time a minister in the Tory government, was recorded as saying about Mr Staunton: “I think the select committee were weak with him, apart from Anthony Higginbottom. Sorry it was so messy. Keen to support in anyway we can, to make sure we get passed this. Hope he’s discredited. Anything else you think we need to do to make it easier?”

Mr Read confirmed to the inquiry that this was referring to the former chairman Henry Staunton.

Mr Staunton and Mr Read have often been at odds with each other in their evidence both to the business select committee and to the Post Office inquiry.

Mr Staunton was sacked by Business secretary Kemi Badenoch in January 2024. He appeared before MPs on 27th Febuary 2024, in which he claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign.

He also claimed that a bullying inquiry was ongoing into Nick Read. Mr Read has now said that an inquiry into any misconduct has exonerated him.