POST OFFICE HORIZON COMPUTER SYSTEM

That this House notes with concern that a number of postmasters have been forced to pay back thousands of pounds, or have been prosecuted or imprisoned, solely on the basis of questionable data indicating cash shortfalls from the Post Office Horizon computer system introduced in 2000; further notes that the BBC Panorama investigation on 17 August 2015, entitled Trouble at the Post Office, demonstrated the damaging effect this has had on the lives of the postmasters involved; acknowledges that the report by forensic accountants Second Sight into claims many sub-postmasters were wrongly accused raises serious questions about the integrity of the Horizon system; expresses disappointment with the dismissive response from the Post Office to the findings of the Second Sight report; notes the concerns raised by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in the last Parliament in a letter to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, dated 17 March 2015, about the approach of the Post Office to the subsequent mediation scheme; notes the Prime Minister's comment on 1 July 2015, Official Report, column 1477, that the internal inquiry by the Post Office has not satisfied many hon. Members on both sides of the House; commends the work of the former hon. Member for North Hampshire, James Arbuthnot, for consistently raising this important issue in the last Parliament; and urges the Government to establish a full independent judicial inquiry.