Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he has written back to Sir Alan Bates about compensation for Horizon victims after the former post office worker claimed to have been snubbed by the Prime Minister.
The recently knighted subpostmaster, 70, had told MPs he wrote to Sir Keir around a month ago requesting help for those affected by the scandal.
He claimed to have written to Sir Keir twice starting a month ago insisting that he should set a deadline for March 2025 to settle the claims after 70 claimants died before receiving compensation.
After not receiving a response, Sir Alan told MPs he contacted the prime minister again just a few days ago to remind him that he hadn’t heard back.
After the hearing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters that Sir Keir has now responded to Sir Alan.
He said: “It was obviously right that we took the time to consider the issues raised in the letter to the Prime Minister, consider our response, make sure it was accurate and substantial and obviously we engaged with relevant departments to ensure that the Prime Minister’s response was as full as possible.
“I think that response was issued earlier today. On the substance of the issue, the Government is committed to getting redress to those affected as quickly as possible and is doing all it can to increase the pace of redress across all schemes.”
The spokesman added: “What we don’t want to do is set an arbitrary cut-off date which could result in some claimants missing the deadline. We obviously don’t want to put pressure on claimants and put them off contesting their claim.
“But each postmaster eligible for the GLO scheme should receive substantial redress by the end of March and we are doing everything we can to achieve that goal.
“As of October 31, approximately £438 million has been paid to over 3,100 claimants across the four schemes.”
Sir Alan had previously told the Business and Trade Committee’s short inquiry into securing “fast and fair redress” for which “people have been waiting far too long, over 20-odd years, there’s over 70 that have died along the way in the GLO group.
“There are people well into their 80s now that are still suffering.”
More than 900 subpostmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their shops.
Sir Alan led a decades-long campaign to expose the national scandal, which saw more than 700 subpostmasters prosecuted by the Post Office and given criminal convictions.
Sir Alan was the figurehead in the drive to clear his colleagues’ names and win compensation after they were wrongly accused of stealing money from the Post Office.
Questioned on whether he would consider going “back to court with a crowdfunded campaign for justice”, Sir Alan said: “I would never say never. It is a consideration.
“I will not say I haven’t spoken to people about this, but I do know if we decide to go down that route, that we’re going to halt the current scheme, and it’s going to be at least another six, 12, or even 24 months before it moves forward in that direction.
“Now that might be a choice people are prepared to take.
“We’ve got a group meeting coming up in a few weeks’ time, and that’s one of the options that we’re going to discuss – that and a few other options as well.
“But we’ve got to move this forward.”
The scandal was first reported in Computer Weekly in 2009. Hundreds of subpostmasters began coming forward to the Justice for Subpostmaster Alliance, and Sir Alan led 555 claimants in a legal case for compensation.
The case won a settlement of £57.75m, but after legal fees, the subpostmasters were left with little. Sir Alan continues to campaign for fair compensation.
