Ed Davey says Post Office lied to him on an 'industrial scale'
Senior Labour shadow cabinet member Pat McFadden is facing more questions this morning after he claimed he had been “misled” by the Post Office while serving as Postal Minister in Gordon Brown’s Government.
Mr McFadden was blasted by Tory Lee Anderson after the Express uncovered evidence the scandal had been raised with him at least twice - once in writing and once in the Commons.
On both occasions the senior Labour politician parroted the Post Office’s defence, saying: “I understand from [Post Office Ltd] the errors at the branch have been fully investigated and there is nothing to indicate that there are any problems with the Horizon system.”
Responding to the new evidence, Mr McFadden told the Express: “The Post Office misled the Business Department and indeed the sub-postmasters when they said that any shortfalls or discrepancies in accounts were isolated incidents and that their IT systems were robust. That would have been reflected in any replies sent to MPs at the time.”
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READ MORE: Top Labour MP slammed for ‘forgetting’ his involvement in Post Office scandal
Mr McFadden also blamed the Post Office for misleading him as postal minister (Image: Getty)
This morning Mr McFadden is facing more calls to “own up” and stop seeking to blame others.
Tory vice chairman Lee Anderson has already said he “struggles to see how easy it would be to forget that innocent people were convicted of stealing money from the Post Office on his watch”.
He said: “People like a former constituent of mine who was sent to jail for three years. I'm sure my former constituent won't suffer such a memory lapse and remember this horrific ordeal for the rest of his life.”
Today, fellow Tory MP Marco Longhi has set out three vital questions both Mr McFadden and Sir Ed must answer as former Post Office ministers who failed to take seriously the cries of injustice from sub-postmasters.
Mr Longhi told the Express: “The mark of any politician, when they get something wrong, is to own up to their errors and put things right as quickly as they can when they become aware of their error.
“Another measure of their credence is the content of their response: do they apologise/resign owning their brief and responsibilities or do they avoid/deflect and seek to blame others?”
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Marco Longhi said both Mr McFadden and Sir Ed have key questions to answer (Image: GB News)
Mr Longhi set out three questions he believes are vital for the duo of lax ex-ministers to answer:
Why has it taken a TV programme to escalate the biggest scandal in living memory when all the facts were out there for ITV to find, and where was the Director of Public Prosecutions (aka Keir Starmer)?
How can Ministers in charge at the time say they 'forgot' when such a large number of people were reporting and there is physical evidence disproving the notion that they could not have been aware of the problem?
Former Ministers in charge at the time are now saying they were also misled. Did it never occur to them at the time that they should have challenged the 'assurances' they were being given? Isn't this the role of a politician to challenge the established (convenient) consensus when so much evidence was piling up?
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The Red Wall MP for Dudley North has demanded a full inquiry into what happened “to, yet again, learn the lessons we all find so hard to learn”.
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He said: “All the evidence was there. Even some MPs of the ruling Labour party sought to challenge but they were dismissed by Ministers, again and again. All the evidence has been there since it happened.
“Why have there been no arrests?
"Why didn't a single Minister even seek to challenge the narrative provided by Fujitsu and Post Office - and why isn't a single one of them looking to apologise now?”
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