Afternoon summary - with a verdict on Stephen Bradshaw's evidence to Post Office inquiry
An inquiry hearing has provided a vivid insight into why victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal feel the organisation is still a long way from accepting its culpability for what has been described as one of Britain’s biggest miscarriages of justice. The inquiry has been hearing evidence in public for almost two years, and veterans of the hearings were not surprised by the evidence from Stephen Bradshaw, a Post Office investigator involved in some of the most prominent miscarriage of justice cases. He is a relatively minor figure in the affair – he was not an executive, or a key decision-maker - and in other circumstances his evidence might have gone unreported. But he led the news bulletins today because this was the first day of evidence since the ITV drama turbocharged public fury about the case, and people watching the hearing got to learn what the frontline perpetrators of the scandal were like. Bradshaw, who still works for the Post Office, came across as a heartless functionary. He showed little or no sympathy for the employees he prosecuted and who are now shown to have been innocent, and he dismissed suggestions that he should have taken more seriously the multiple complaints he encountered about the Horizon IT system. “I’m not technically minded,” he said, stressing he had been assured the IT system was reliable. Although he was personally in charge of some prosecutions, he repeatedly claimed that responsibility for dubious Post Office tactics – including the withholding of evidence about the reliability of Horizon from defence counsel (see 2.42pm), and using implied threats to get people to plead guilty (see 4.14pm) or to withdraw their allegations about Horizon (see 3.33pm) – lay with the lawyers, not with him. Despite being offered several chances to show some contrition, or to express sympathy for the victims, he declined (see 10.22am and 2.42pm). “I’m a small cog in this,” he said at one point. And a rather unappealing one too, many viewers will have concluded.
Patients are facing “unacceptably long” waits for care, health experts have said, as figures show the NHS going backwards on some of its key targets.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, is calling for an “honest” debate about Brexit in a speech citing new research saying it has made the UK economy £140bn smaller than it otherwise would have been. (See 4.10pm.)
Unlicensed XL bully dogs will be banned in Scotland, Humza Yousaf has said, as the Scottish government moves to replicate the new restrictions in England and Wales that have resulted in an apparent influx of the breed to Scotland.
Updated
Near the end of his evidence session, Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, was asked about a claim from Rita Threlfall, a branch manager he investigated.
In a statement read out to the inquiry Threlfall, who uses a wheelchair, said:
Upon arrival, they left my husband and me in a hallway. We asked for a chair and never received one. I ended up having to sit down on the stairs. The interview room was up the stairs. I told them there was no way I could make it up the stairs. In order to make it to the interview room, I was placed in a tiny parcel lift.
Bradshaw said this was not true. He told the inquiry:
I can only keep repeating that it is not a small parcel lift. It is wheelchair accessible.
Updated
No 10 has said Rishi Sunak will not be attending the World Economic Forum at Davos next week. A spokersperson said:
The PM will not be attending the World Economic Forum, but the UK government will be represented by senior government ministers.
They will be championing priority growth sectors in the UK to the global business community and leveraging private sector investment on UK strategic foreign policy goals.
At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry the final lawyer to question Stephen Bradshaw was Christopher Jacobs, representing another group of post office operators.
He challenged Bradshaw over a document relating to one prosecution in 2010 where Bradshaw said he wanted the prosecution to go ahead because “the integrity of the Horizon system was in question”.
Jacobs said this showed that Bradshaw was actively trying to discredit the campaign by post office operators at the time who were arguing the Horizon system was flawed and leading to miscarriages of justice.
Bradshaw said this was another example of “flamboyant” language. (He used the term earlier – see 11.57am.)
The hearing has now ended.
Updated
Bradshaw accepts Post Office's investigations department 'drenched in information' about complaints with Horizon
Edward Henry KC asked Stephen Bradshaw to confirm that his department was “drenched in information” about complaints with Horizon. He said:
Mr Bradshaw, contrary to what you say, you and your department, the security department, were drenched in information that Horizon wasn’t working from the very beginning.
Bradshaw replied: “The information came through, yes.”
And Henry continued:
That information came from scores and scores, and ultimately hundreds and hundreds, of innocent subpostmasters who were suffering an epidemic of shortfalls.
Bradshaw replied: “Yes.”
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Post Office used threats of theft charges as 'nasty crowbar' to get people to plead guilty to false accounting, KC claims at inquiry
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Stephen Bradshaw, the former Post Office investigator, is now being questioned by counsel for core participants.
Edward Henry KC, who is representing some sub-post office operatives, put it to Bradshaw that people were accused of theft, even when there was no evidence for that, as a tactic to get them to plead guilty to false accounting. He said the Post Office was using theft as “a nasty jemmy or crowbar to leverage pleas to false accounting”.
Bradshaw said those were matters for the lawyers.
Updated
Sadiq Khan calls for 'honest' debate about Brexit, publishing research saying it has made UK economy £140bn smaller
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, will call for an “honest” debate about Brexit in a speech tonight in which he will highlight new research claiming the average Briton was nearly £2,000 worse off last year because the UK is no longer in the EU.
And Khan will say that the report from Cambridge Econometrics shows the average Londoner is nearly £3,400 worse off.
The report argues that the UK economy is £140bn smaller than it otherwise would have been, and London’s economy £30bn smaller than it would have been, because of Brexit.
Khan will set out his case in his speech to the Mansion House dinner tonight. In a news release with advance quotes, Khan says:
Rather than dodging and ducking this issue, it’s incumbent on all of us to have an honest and mature discussion about the best way forward. It’s now obvious that Brexit isn’t working.
The hard-line version of Brexit we’ve ended up with is dragging our economy down and pushing up the cost of living. It’s making food more expensive, adding to the acute pressures on households and having an ongoing detrimental impact on industries that are crucial to our success – such as hospitality, construction and financial services.
I’d rather not be talking about Brexit again. But part of being the mayor of London is about standing up for our city. We’ve got to be frank – Brexit is simply not a peripheral concern that we can leave in the past – it’s a key contributor to the cost-of-living crisis right now and it’s resulting in lost opportunities, lost business and lost income at a time when people and companies can least afford it.
Khan says he agrees with David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, who has said that Labour wants a closer relationship with the EU. But his call for an “honest and mature” discussion about Brexit is unlikely to be welcomed by Kair Starmer, who wants more leave voters to support Labour and who says little in public about Brexit, which he is treating as a settled issue.
The Cambridge Econometrics report is an update of an analysis carried out previously. It has calculated the cost of Brexit by modelling what is likely to happen to the economy as it is now against what might have happened if the UK had stayed in the EU (the counterfactual). Here is the key table.
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Post Office only agreed to accept reduced charges in some cases if accused accepted 'nothing wrong' with Horizon, inquiry told
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, asks about another prosecution of a post officer operator. He shows the inquiry a document showing the Post Office indicated that it would accept a guilty plea on a less serious charge provided the defendant agreed to accept that there was “nothing wrong with Horizon”.
Blake asks if this was acceptable.
Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator giving evidence, at first avoids the question, saying this may reflect what had been said earlier.
Sir Wyn Williams, the chair, says it’s a simple question. Was it appropriate?
Bradshaw replies: “Probably not.”
When Blake presses Bradshaw on this, he appears to retract at a little. It would not be acceptable “with today’s knowledge”, Bradshaw says.
Q: What about the knowledge you had then?
Bradshaw says that is the way cases happened then. The instructions came from solicitors.
Blake says there is evidence of this approach in two cases. Whose idea was it?
Not mine, says Bradshaw.
Q: Was this coming from the Post Office?
Bradshaw says the lawyers took the key decisions. He says those decisions were made “at a higher level than me”.
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Yousaf says Scotland will 'in essence replicate' England's ban on having XL bully dogs without licence
Humza Yousaf has said the Scottish government will “in essence replicate” UK legislation banning XL bully dogs without a licence, PA Media reports. Speaking in the Scottish parliament the first minister said:
In England and Wales strict rules on the dogs came into force at the start of the month and Yousaf told MSPs:
What has become clear, I’m afraid in the last few weeks, is we have seen a flow of XL bully dogs coming to Scotland, a number of people coming to Scotland to bring XL bully dogs here to the country.
As such, we will give further details to members of the Scottish Parliament through a parliamentary statement if the parliamentary bureau agrees next week.
We will, in essence, replicate the legislation that is in England and Wales here in Scotland because ultimately, although we do have a very good system of dog control notice schemes … we have to respond to the situation as it currently stands and therefore we will do what we need to do to ensure public safety.
Yousaf stressed that he was not proposing a complete ban.
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Bradshaw declines to express regret about Horizon reliability evidence being withheld from defence in false accounting case
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Stephen Bradshaw, a Post Office investigator, is now being asked about a case involving Angela Sefton and Anne Nield. They were convicted of false accounting in 2013 but cleared a decade later. Bradshaw was the investigator.
Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, asks about a description of the women facing investigators at the post offfice. It says there were tears.
Bradshaw says he does not remember there being tears. He says the women “didn’t seem particularly upset”.
He claims his inquiry in this case was about money not being deposited. He argues that this was not a Horizon problem.
Blake puts it to him that problems with the Horizon system were the underlying cause of what went wrong. Bradshaw disputes this.
Blake reads extracts from the defence’s case in Sefton’s trial. These show that the defence did make problems with Horizon an issue.
He also shows an extract from the defence statement in Neild’s case, and he says both show that problems with the Horizon were central to their defence. He says these claims show why evidence relating to the unreliability of Horizon should have been disclosed in the case.
Bradshaw continues to insist that the case wasn’t mainly about Horizon. It was about deposits not being credited with an account. Horizon was a “secondary issue”, he says.
He also argues that what was relevant was ultimately a matter for the lawyers. He was there to gather evidence, he says.
Blake shows a letter showing the Post Office’s lawyers decided not to disclose material relating to concerns about Horizon.
Asked if he agreed with this, Bradshaw says it was not a matter for him. He says he thought you should disclose what you have, but it was a matter for the lawyers.
Q: But you are the prosecuting authority?
Bradshaw says he was not the prosecuting authority. He says he gathered information and handed it to the lawyers.
Q: Do you have any further reflections on this?
Bradshaw says this case was primarily about the suppression of cash deposit slips.
Q: So we can take it you have no further reflections on this?
Bradshaw replies: “If you wish to take it that way, yes.”
Updated
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, has issued a statement about the hospital waiting figures focusing in particular on the increase in the number of people waiting more than 18 months. (See 10.51am.) He said:
It’s deeply concerning to see rising numbers of patients waiting more than 18 months for treatment. Rishi Sunak promised to eliminate the longest waits by last summer, yet more and more patients are having to put their lives on hold for unacceptable lengths of time.
The last Labour government cut waiting lists from 18 months to 18 weeks. We did it before and we will do it again.
Labour MP Tony Lloyd says he is ill with 'aggressive and untreatable leukaemia'
The Labour MP Tony Lloyd has released a statement saying he is ill with an aggressive and untreatable form of leukaemia. He says:
I have been receiving treatment for some time for a form of blood cancer which has been controlled by chemotherapy. Unfortunately this has now transformed into an aggressive and untreatable form of leukaemia and I will be leaving hospital today to spend the time I have left with my family.
He has asked for privacy.
Lloyd, 73, was first elected to parliament in 1983. He was a Foreign Office minister for two years under Tony Blair and left the Commons to serve as Greater Manchester’s police commissioner in 2012. In 2017 he returned to the Commons as MP for Rochdale.
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No 10 says NHS waiting lists still 'far too high' but strikes having 'significant impact'
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said waiting lists were “still far too high” but argued that strikes were partly responsible. The spokesperson said:
Undoubtedly the strikes are having a significant impact on patient care, it forces those staff – the majority of staff who are not striking – to have to cover for junior doctors and that has a knock-on effect on patients.
We have seen that with the number of cancelled operations. It’s unacceptable, it’s not fair to patients, it’s not fair to other NHS workers – the majority of whom are paid less than the average junior doctor.
Updated
Humza Yousaf says he wants to work with UK government to ensure victims of Post Office Horizon scandal exonerated
At first minister’s questions in Edinburgh opposition leaders raised questions about the role of the Crown Office in the Horizon scandal, given that in Scotland, unlike elsewhere in the UK, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) had sole responsibility for prosecuting Horizon cases.
The Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, called for the lord advocate to make a statement to MSPs after the BBC revealed that the Crown Office was first informed of possible issues with Horizon in May 2013.
Humza Yousaf, the first minister, responded that he had been told the Crown Office at that point provided guidance to courts to treat cases on evidence that did not rely on Horizon, meaning that after that the Crown Office would not prosecute solely on Horizon evidence.
Yousaf also re-iterated his pledge that everyone convicted in Scotland as part of the scandal would be cleared.
He wrote to Rishi Sunak yesterday evening, saying that he wanted to work with the UK government to ensure victims across the UK were exonerated.
Usually a law such as the one proposed by Sunak to quash the convictions would not have effect in Scotland, but Yousaf has indicated that a legislative consent motion approved in the Scottish parliament would be the quickest way of ensuring that it did apply north of the border.
He said that the process was “complex” but that his government would work “urgently” to ensure sub-postmasters did not have to wait for a moment longer for justice.
Updated
Back at the inquiry Stephen Bradshaw is now being asked about the prosecution of Khayyam Ishaq, a post office operator. Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, asks Bradshaw about the prosecution case. It included the prosection asserting that there was “no fault in the [Horizon] system at all”.
Asked if he was happy about that claim, Bradshaw says that that was the claim being stated by the lawyers.
Blake puts it to him that this was 2013, and that at this point Bradshaw was aware of allegations about problems with the Horizon system.
Bradshaw says he was not in court for the prosecution’s opening statement because he was a witness.
The hearing breaks for lunch.
NHS England waiting list higher than at time Sunak made pledge to reduce it, figures show
The NHS England waiting list is still higher than it was at the time Rishi Sunak pledged to reduce it, data shows, PA Media reports. PA says:
In January 2023, the prime minister made cutting the waiting list a key priority for the year, saying: “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.
However the figures show that despite recent dips in the waiting list, it is still higher than when the pledge was made.
The waiting list stood at 7.21m treatments waiting to be carried out in January 2023.
As of November, some 7.61 treatments were waiting to be carried out.
The analysis shows there would need to be a drop of 400,000 in the December 2023 data (not yet published) to return the waiting list to what it was when the pledge was made.
This is four times the drop of 100,000 between October and November.
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Bradshaw says he's 'small cog' as he suggests lawyers to blame for evidence about Horizon flaws not being disclosed
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, is being asked about a trial where the defence asked for the disclosure of evidence about wider problems with the Horizon system. Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, highlights various documents showing that Bradshaw was asked for information but gave little or nothing in response. Bradshaw repeatedly says that he relied on the Post Office’s lawyers to decide what should be disclosed. “I’m a small cog in this,” he says.
Asked if he ever had concerns when he realised the lawyers were refusing to hand over more documentation about wider problems with the Horizon system, Bradshaw says he cannot remember what was said.
But he repeats the point about how he viewed this as an issue for the lawyers, even though he was the disclosure officer in the case.
Updated
Waiting list figures show Sunak can't claim blame strikes for hospital performance, says RCN
The Royal College of Nursing says today’s hospital waiting figures (see 9.48am) show the PM cannot just blame NHS strikes for long waiting lists. In a statement Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, said:
The NHS waiting list remains extraordinarily high and the UK government only has itself to blame. It’s been over a year since the prime minister pledged to bring down the waiting list, yet it remains 400,000 higher than when he made his promise.
The prime minister can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes by claiming it is down to strike action. He needs to start listening to nursing staff who have been calling for investment in the workforce, including fair pay.
Updated
Under the government’s Post Office Horizon plan announced yesterday, as well as legislation to quash wrongful convictions, there will also be a new compensation offer of £75,000. This is for members of the “group litigation cohort”, post office operators who were not convicted but who were wrongly forced to “hand back” money that the Horizon IT system was missing. This group has been instrumental in exposing the miscarriage of justice.
Members of this group can either accept £75,000 upfront or, if they believe they are entitled to more, seek specific compensation under a process already in place.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said the government expected most people in this group would not accept the upfront payments. He said:
It’s worth emphasising that this is an upfront offer. We would estimate that around a third of individuals would take that.
For those that are more significantly impacted, perhaps they had to use significantly more of their life savings or whatever it might be, they are able to seek a higher offer. And our aim is to resolve that by the summer.
We recognise that there will be a significant number for whom £75,000 is not sufficient. That’s entirely understandable.
The spokesperson also did not rule out further legislation once the inquiry is over.
Updated
Labour has posted a summary of its child health action plan on its website. Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting have been formally launching it in Liverpool this morning.
Updated
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry Stephen Bradshaw is being asked about what he did to establish that the computer system was working properly.
Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, shows an extract from a report by Bradshaw into a particular inquiry where Bradshaw said he was not aware of any problems with Horizon’s “product integrity”.
And Blake brings up this extract from Bradshaw’s witness statement, where he implies it was not for him to question the integrity of the Horizon system.
Blake questions why Bradshaw was not more sceptical of Horizon, given that by this point doubts about the system were being raised.
Bradshaw says in the investigation referred to, Horizon was not the issue.
Updated
In the Commons this morning Penny Mordaunt, leader of the house, told MPs that the second reading of the government’s oil and gas bill would take place on Monday 22 January. It was meant to happen three days ago, but got postponed because other business overran.
Updated
In the inquiry hearing Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, defended saying that he wanted a particular case to go to trial to defend the integrity of the Horizon IT system.
Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, quoted from Bradshaw’s self-appraisal in the case of Jacqueline McDonald. (See 11.12am and 11.49am.) Bradshaw said:
The offender pleaded guilty to false accounting but would not accept theft. I challenged the recommendations of the barrister and persuaded him that a trial would be necessary, as the reason given by the defendant, Horizon integrity, would have a wider impact on the business if a trial did not go ahead.
Blake then asked:
It seems, certainly from your own feedback, from your own appraisal, that you saw it as in some way career-boosting to press on with Ms McDonald’s case because of problems with the Horizon system having a wider impact on the business. Do you not accept that?
Bradshaw replied:
The issue would been discussed with the prosecution barrister. As you’re well aware, when you’re filling in one-to-ones, there’s always a flamboyant way of putting the words across.
Bradshaw also denied suggestions that his bonuses were related to getting convictions in cases like this.
Updated
Post Office investigator made accused post office operator think she was only person with missing money, inquiry told
At the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry extracts were shown from a statement made by Jacqueline McDonald, who claimed she was “bullied” by Stephen Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall. In the statement, she said:
Shortly after I had been audited and my post office was taken away from me, I read an article in a magazine which highlighted other people who have suffered or [were] about to suffer the same hell I was going through. I then got in touch with the writer of the article who then put me in touch with the JFSA (Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance).
This was a very big surprise to me as I was led to believe by the investigator for the POL Stephen Bradshaw that I was the only one in this position and this has never happened before.
Stephen Bradshaw is a liar and he knew the whole time as I am friends with another person he has prosecuted that was a member of the JFSA. It is just unbelievable how I was made to feel like I was the only one and it made me isolated and paranoid.
Asked about this Bradshaw said: “I’ve never said that to her. That’s incorrect, that statement.”
Updated
This is from Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, the health thinktank, on today’s NHS England performance figures.
These figures show that the NHS is still not meeting the majority of its most important performance targets this winter.
On some measures the situation is better than this time last year, in part thanks to efforts to increase capacity as well as relatively low hospital admissions from Covid-19 and flu, but patients are still not receiving an acceptable level of service …
With the waiting list for routine care at 7.6 million, it is increasingly unlikely that the prime minister’s pledge to improve waiting-list performance by this March will be met.
NHS England has a target of getting rid of hospital waits of more than 65 weeks by March 2024, and waits of more than a year by March 2025. It was supposed to have eliminated 18-month waits by April 2023.
Updated
This is from John Hyde from the Law Society Gazette who (unlike many of us) started following Post Office Horizon IT inquiry hearings long before the ITV drama catapulted the scandal to the top of the Westminster news agenda.
Seen a lot of tweets from people saying Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw is coming across as incompetent and/or blindly defending the PO.
For those of us who have covered the inquiry before, let me tell you this is nothing new
Seen a lot of tweets from people saying Post Office investigator Stephen Bradshaw is coming across as incompetent and/or blindly defending the PO.
— John Hyde (@JohnHyde1982) January 11, 2024
For those of us who have covered the inquiry before, let me tell you this is nothing new. #PostOfficeScandal
At the inquiry hearing Julian Blake is now asking Stephen Bradshaw about his use of aggressive language in the Jacqueline McDonald investigation. (See 11.12am.) This included his suggesting she was telling “a pack of lies”.
Bradshaw repeats the point he made earlier about how these were Pace (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) interviews. (See 10.56am.) They were not intended to be nice, he says. He says he normally warned people in advance that he needed to ask tough questions, but that it was not personal.
UPDATE: PA Media has more on this exchange.
Jacqueline McDonald claimed she was “bullied” by Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall and also accused Post Office investigators of “behaving like Mafia gangsters”.
The inquiry heard extracts of an interview Bradshaw conducted with McDonald.
Bradshaw asked her to tell him what happened to the money, to which the subpostmistress said: “I don’t know where the money is, I’ve told you.”
He responded: “You have told me a pack of lies.”
McDonald said: “No I haven’t told you a pack of lies because I haven’t stolen a penny.”
Updated
Post Office investigator denies acting like 'mafia gangster' with post office operators in evidence to inquiry
Here is the full text of the witness statement that Stephen Bradshaw has given to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
And this is what PA Media has filed based on what it says.
A Post Office investigator has denied claims he and others “behaved like Mafia gangsters” who were looking to collect “bounty with the threats and lies” from subpostmasters.
Stephen Bradshaw, who has been employed at the Post Office since 1978, submitted a witness statement to the Horizon IT inquiry in which he said: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.”
He told the inquiry he was not “technically minded” and was not equipped to know whether there were bugs or errors in the Horizon system.
The witness began giving evidence this morning after being involved in the criminal investigation of nine sub-post office operators, including Lisa Brennan, a former counter clerk at a post office in Huyton, near Liverpool, who was falsely accused of stealing £3,000 in 2003.
Bradshaw has also been accused by fellow Merseyside subpostmistress Rita Threlfall of asking her for the colour of her eyes and what jewellery she wore before saying: “Good, so we’ve got a description of you for when they come”, during her interview under caution in August 2010.
Another sub-post office operator, Jacqueline McDonald, claimed she was “bullied” by Bradshaw during an investigation into her alleged £50,000 shortfall.
Responding to McDonald’s claims in his statement, the witness said: “I refute the allegation that I am a liar.
“I also refute the claim that Jacqueline McDonald was bullied, from the moment we arrived, the auditor was already on site, conversations were initially (held) with Mr McDonald, the reason for our attendance was explained, Mr and Mrs McDonald were kept updated as the day progressed.”
The investigator added: “Ms Jacqueline McDonald is also incorrect in stating Post Office investigators behaved like Mafia gangsters looking to collect their bounty with the threats and lies.”
Throughout his witness statement, Bradshaw said his investigations had been conducted in a “professional” manner.
Updated
Blake quotes an extract from Bradshaw’s witness statement where he says he never told a Post Office suspect that they were the only person experiencing the sort of money disappearance problem being investigated.
He quotes from the transcript of an interview attended by Bradshaw and another investigator where the second investigator told the woman being interviewed no one else was having those problems. He points out that Bradshaw did not query that.
Bradshaw says that comment meant no one else in that branch was having that problems. It was not a statement about no one else in the entire Post Office network having that problems.
Bradshaw says it was a Pace (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) interview. The questions were meant to be difficult, he says. He says he regards the interview as professional
More than 11,000 people still waiting more than 18 months for hospital treatment in England, figures show
Rishi Sunak said he wanted NHS England to eliminate all hospital waits lasting more than 18 months – apart from exceptionally complicated cases, or cases where patients are happy to wait. As PA Media reports, today’s figures show that 11,168 people were estimated waiting more than 18 months at the end of November 2023, up from 10,506 at the end of October.
Today’s figures also show that 355,412 people in England had been waiting more than a year for hospital treatment at the end of November 2023, down from 377,618 at the end of October, PA says. The government has a target of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.
At the inquiry Blake points out that some of what was in a previous witness statement from Bradshaw was drafted by the PR department at the Post Office.
Bradshaw says he did not know that. As far as he was aware, he says, the draft came from the lawywers.
Updated
Back at the Post Office inquiry Julian Blake says Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, seems to show a “lack of reflection” on his role in miscarriage of justice events in a witness statement he supplied.
Bradshaw says he has reflected on what he said in his statement, because some of what he said was “completely wrong”. But he says he was told what he should say by lawyers.
UPDATE: PA Media has more on these exchanges.
Stephen Bradshaw, who was an investigation manager for the Post Office, said a statement signed by him declaring the Post Office’s “absolute confidence” in the Horizon IT system was written by lawyers.
A statement signed by Bradshaw in November 2012 said: “The Post Office continues to have absolute confidence in the robustness and integrity of its Horizon system.”
Bradshaw earlier told the inquiry he was not “technically minded” and was not equipped to know whether there were bugs or errors in the Horizon system.
Asked if it was appropriate for him to declare “confidence” in the IT system in the 2012 statement, he said: “I was given that statement by Cartwright King [a law firm] and told to put that statement through. In hindsight … there probably should have been another line stating, ‘These are not my words’.”
Updated
13% of ambulance handovers at hospitals in England delayed more than hour, figures show
The NHS England figures out today show the performance of the ambulance service getting worse. PA Media has summarised the main points.
The average response time in December for ambulances in England dealing with the most urgent incidents, defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, was 8min 44sec, PA says. This is up from 8min 32sec in November and is above the target standard response time of seven minutes.
Ambulances took an average of 45min 57sec last month to respond to emergency calls such as heart attacks, strokes and sepsis, PA says. This is up from 38min 30sec in November, while the target is 18min.
Response times for urgent calls, such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged 2hr 37min 5sec in December, up from 2hr 16min 47secin November, PA says.
Some 13% of ambulance handovers in England last week, or 12,225 patients, were delayed by more than an hour, PA says. This was up from 12% a week earlier, but is below this winter’s current peak of 15%, recorded in the week to 10 December.
Nearly one in three patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week waited more than 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams, PA says. Some 28,189 delays of half an hour or longer were recorded across all hospital trusts in the week to 7 January. This was 31% of the 91,234 arrivals by ambulance, where the handover time was known. The figure is up from 29% in the previous week, but is not the highest so far this winter, which was 34% in the week ending 10 December, PA says.
Updated
Post Office investigator tells inquiry he was not told of problems with Horizon IT system
Blake runs through Bradshaw’s witness statement, and highlight passages where, in relation to various investigations, he said he had no concerns about what happened. He asks Bradshaw if, over the past 20 years, he has given any thought to his role in a miscarriage of justice.
Bradshaw says he was not told about any problems with the Horizon system. The investigations were carried out correctly.
Labour to focus on ‘blue wall’ seats as it kicks off byelection drive
Labour is to kick off campaigning in a string of upcoming byelections by highlighting increased mortgage costs in so-called blue wall constituencies, in a tactical shift in which the party will openly target Conservative-held seats coveted by the Liberal Democrats, Peter Walker reports.
Stephen Bradshaw is sworn in.
Sir Wyn Williams says Bradshaw has the right not to answer a question if he thinks it will incriminate him. He says Bradshaw can consult his lawyers if he needs advice on this.
Bradshaw is now being questioned by Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry.
Bradshaw says he was employed by the Post Office from 1978. He says he has been involved in investigations since 2000 and is currently a security manager.
Updated
Sir Wyn Williams, chair of the inquiry, is opening the proceedings now.
He starts by giving details of future hearings.
But he says some of the timings depend on how quickly material is disclosed by the Post Office.
He says his wife was “extremely alarmed” to hear a report saying phase six would not start until the spring of next year. He says his intention is that it should start long before then.
But says he has been bad at predicting timings. But doing a thorough job is more important than “a few months here or there”, he says.
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Post Office Horizon inquiry takes evidence from former investigator
The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is taking evidence this morning. The inquiry was set up in 2020, and upgraded to a statutory inquiry a year later, and has been holding public hearings for almost two years. But the scandal is now getting much more media attention than before as a direct result of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office broadcast after Christmas.
The witness giving evidence today is Stephen Bradshaw, a former Post Office investigator. Describing his role, PA Media says:
Bradshaw has also been accused by fellow Merseyside subpostmistress Rita Threlfall of asking her for the colour of her eyes and what jewellery she wore before saying: “Good, so we’ve got a description of you for when they come” during her interview under caution in August 2010.
Lead counsel to the inquiry, Jason Beer KC, previously described Bradshaw as having a “heavy footprint” in the scandal.
His evidence will form part of phase four of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry which began in July last year and is looking at the action that was taken against subpostmasters including audits, investigations and criminal proceedings.
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In the Commons the government has moved the writs for the bylections in Wellinborough, where Peter Bone had a majority of 18,540 in 2019, and in Kingswood, where Chris Skidmore’s majority was 11,220. They are both expected to take place on Thursday 15 February.
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NHS England hospital waiting list falls slightly for second month in row to 7.61m
The waiting list for hospital treatment in England has fallen for the second month in a row, figures from NHS England out this morning show.
As PA Media reports, an estimated 7.61m treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of November, relating to 6.39 million patients, down from 7.71m treatments and 6.44 million patients at the end of October, NHS England said.
This chart, from the NHS England news release, shows how the waiting list has soared over the past decade.
And this table shows what treatments people are waiting for.
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Labour promises to end ‘scandal of plummeting child health outcomes’
Good morning. Keir Starmer will today start a series of fortnightly visits around Britain intended to promote Labour’s “missions”, and today he is in the north-west of England launching the party’s child health action plan. He has written about the proposals for the Guardian here.
As Pippa Crerar explains in her report, Starmer is not afraid of claims that measures like supervised teeth brushing for three to five-year-olds in nursery are “nanny state”. Starmer says:
I know that we need to take on this question of the nanny state. The moment you do anything on child health, people say ‘you’re going down the road of the nanny state.’ We want to have that fight.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, was on the Today programme this morning speaking about the plans and he said he was shocked by the evidence showing the extent to which the health and wellbeing of the nation’s children has declined. He said, compared to their international peers, children were getting shorter under the Tories.
At the heart of all of the policies we’re we’re announcing today is a focus on prevention, promoting good health amongst kids, and making sure that we arrest this decline in our country.
When you look at the OECD tables, and you look at the height of children, which is an indicator of their health, their nutrition and their exercise, we’re slipping down the international rankings for boys and girls. We are literally not standing as tall as we did on the world stage. And I think this is embarrassing.
And in its news release Labour says:
British children today are smaller than Haitian children, fatter than the French, and less happy than the Turks.
The height of the average British five-year old girl has fallen by 27 places in international rankings over the last three decades, with the average British five-year-old boy has fallen by 33 places on the height league table.
Here is a chart from an ITV report that illustrates the point.
Labour says it wants to “end the scandal of plummeting child health outcomes” and produce “the healthiest and happiest generation of children ever in Britain”.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: NHS England publishes its monthly performance figures.
Morning: Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, are on a visit in the north-west of England to promote Labour’s health missions. They are both doing media interviews.
10am: The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry resumes for the first time since the ITV drama ignited public outrage about the scandal. Stephen Bradshaw, a former Post Office investigator, is giving evidence.
After 10.30am: Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, makes a statement on next week’s business in the chamber.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Noon: Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions at Holyrood.
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