Watch as Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom - a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board gives evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry on Wednesday 10 April.

       The former MP for North East Hampshire spoke a day after lead campaigner and former subpostmaster Alan Bates told the inquiry he believed the Post Office was “definitely trying to outspend us” as part of its “aggressive” tactics at the High Court.

       Giving evidence in front of Post Office chief executive Nick Read on Tuesday, Mr Bates said the organisation “needs disbanding” and called it a “dead duck” that is “beyond saving”.

       He also took aim at the government’s “fundamental flaw” of being unable to deal with issues such as the Horizon scandal “easily and sensibly”.

       The Post Office has come under fire since the broadcast of ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which put the scandal under the spotlight.

       More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by the government-owned organisation and handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches.