The former chair of the Post Office has claimed he was the victim of a “smear campaign” led by the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, and turned on his chief executive in a dramatic day of evidence to a parliamentary committee.
Henry Staunton, who was removed from his post in January, defiantly stood by allegations that the government had sought to slow down compensation payments to the victims of the Horizon scandal, and suggested he had been removed for fighting for them.
He further revealed to MPs on the trade and business committee that Nick Read, who has been chief executive of the Post Office since 2019, was under internal investigation, and claimed that Read had threatened to resign over unhappiness with his pay packet.
The Post Office confirmed on Tuesday evening that an investigation had been opened into Read and that there were complaints against him and other staff.
Read was paid a basic salary of £436,000 last year, and has received hundreds of thousands of pounds more in perks over the last two years.
The claim from Staunton appeared to directly contradict Read’s own evidence to the committee earlier on Tuesday. During that session the Labour MP Liam Byrne had asked Read whether he had “ever tried to resign as chief executive at the Post Office”. Read had responded: “No, why do you say that?”
Soon after the claims were made in parliament, Ben Tidswell, senior independent director on the Post Office Board, wrote a letter to the organisation’s staff, writing that Read had “at times felt the weight of Post Office’s awful history on his shoulders” and that it was “no surprise, and is entirely appropriate, that he will have discussed this, in confidence, with the former chairman”.
But Tidswell added: “To my knowledge he has never tendered his resignation and he continues to accept leadership responsibility for the challenges that we are all working on each day.
“Post Office has received a complaint against a number of people within the organisation – Nick is one of those employees – and I am sure you will all agree that Post Office should investigate every complaint with due process. Nick accepts this and has cooperated fully with the investigation.”
Early on in his evidence, Staunton had told the MPs that he had no doubt that a senior civil servant in the business department had suggested that compensation payments should be slowed down before the next general election. Badenoch has accused Staunton of lying.
However, the most sensational testimony came as Staunton said that while he was being investigated by the Post Office over allegedly using “politically incorrect” language, which he denies, it was actually Read who was the main focus of an internal inquiry.
“Mr Read fell out with his HR director and she produced a ‘speak up document’, which was 80 pages thick,” Staunton, 75, told MPs.
“And within that was one paragraph there about comments that I allegedly made. So this was an investigation not into me, this was an investigation made into the chief executive, Nick Read.”
Staunton, who claimed the investigation had affected Read’s “emotional and mental state”, went on: “This 80-page document was actually taking a terrible toll on Nick Read. He said: ‘I’m not being supported by the board. And this is just bad news for me and my family. I’m going to resign tomorrow, I’ve just had enough.’”
When asked by Tory MP Jonathan Gullis for clarification, given that Read had earlier in the session told MPs on oath that he had not considered resigning from the Post Office, Staunton responded: “The 80-page report, of course, alleges from the HR director, not my words, that Nick was going to resign because he was unhappy with his pay. She’s put that in this document.”
The Labour MP Ian Lavery asked whether Staunton was “sure”.
“I’m absolutely positive,” Staunton responded. He added that shortly after his own appointment in December 2022, he had broached the subject of Read’s pay with the then business secretary, Grant Shapps, and then later the current Post Office minister, Kevin Hollinrake.
“I got a strong message from Mr Shapps when he was secretary of state: ‘Don’t even think about coming for any salary increase.’ I got a strong message from Minister Hollinrake. I said to him: ‘Nick is unhappy with the salaries.’ [He said:] ‘Don’t waste a postage stamp coming to talk to me about it.’”
More than 900 operators were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 as the Post Office’s Horizon accounting system made it appear as though money was missing from their branches.
Thousands more had their lives ruined by the emergence of apparent financial shortfalls that they could not cover.
More than £1bn in financial redress is expected to be paid out, but the process for distributing money has been heavily criticised.
The inquiry heard earlier on Tuesday from two former post office operators, Tony Downey, who left the UK after suffering a nervous breakdown after his branch suffered shortfalls, and Tim Brentnall, whose conviction was overturned in 2021.
Both were yet to receive compensation and had been paid £20,000 and £26,000 a year respectively in their roles running post office branches.
Downey said lawyers for the compensation scheme were challenging whether his bankruptcy and mental health issues had resulted from the scandal.
Alan Bates, the former post office operator who has led the campaign for justice, said he was yet to receive compensation and that he saw “no end” to the scandal. He described the Post Office as a “dead duck” which should be sold to Amazon for £1.
Staunton claimed that part of the reason for his departure from the Post Office was his battling for former branch operators who sit on the board as non-executive directors as they sought to change the culture of the organisation.
He said: “The secretary of state, senior civil service and Post Office officials are asking us to believe that everything was going swimmingly all along, when it damn well wasn’t.”
He added: “I will at least have achieved something if the sunlight of disinfectant, which the secretary of state so approves of, means that government now lives up to its promises. I’ve spoken up on matters of genuine public concern, have been fired and am now subject to a smear campaign.”
Summarising Staunton’s evidence, Byrne said: “You’ve also given us some pretty bombshell revelations about a boardroom that is in some disarray, a chief executive who is under investigation and the chief executive who has sought to resign even though he has just told us, on oath, that he has not.”
Labour MP Kevan Jones, who has been campaigning on the scandal since 2009, said: “The secretary of state should explain what the 80-page documented complaint is against Nick Read, the chief executive, and why she thought it wasn’t relevant to mention that when she was responding to Staunton’s sacking.”
A source close to Badenoch said Staunton had been fired for blocking an investigation into his conduct and attempting to bypass the formal process to appoint a new director to the board.
The source added: “Henry Staunton has been nothing but a distraction against our work to get justice and compensation to the postmasters.
“Now he tries to deflect the focus on to Nick Read. He and Read were being investigated. But while Read cooperated, Staunton tried to block his investigation. As was said in the committee, board members were going to resign. And still no one has corroborated his story.”
Earlier Read, who admitted he had been coached for his appearance by a PR firm on a £15,000 contract, had suggested that Staunton was wrong about his claims about government pressure to slow down compensation payments.
