Policy paper

Equalities statement: Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Updated 8 May 2024

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Introduction

From the mid-1990s, hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were wrongly convicted after shortfalls of money appeared in their branches, due to faults with Horizon software. To quash these wrongful convictions as quickly as possible the government is introducing exceptional, new primary legislation. This will be followed by the provision of a route to rapid financial redress. 

Hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have been waiting for justice for years, some for decades, and many postmasters have told us they do not want to engage with the justice system any longer. The judiciary and the courts have dealt swiftly with the cases before them, but the passage of time, lack of evidence and lack of trust in the wider criminal justice system means that existing mechanisms will not provide the swift and complete righting of this miscarriage of justice. Government action, via primary legislation, is therefore necessary to provide a swift and certain resolution avoid any more delays to financial redress, via a blanket quashing of convictions that meet the criteria. 

Policy summary

The Bill will quash all convictions in scope, which excludes convictions already considered by the Court of Appeal or any that take place after the Bill comes into force. That scope will be defined by a set of clear and objective conditions which will be set out in the Bill, each of which will need to have been met, to identify the convictions which have been quashed. The conditions are:   

• prosecutor(s): the Bill specifies that convictions where the case was prosecuted by the Post Office or the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland or the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland they will meet this condition
• offence dates: a set timeframe ensures convictions are only quashed where the offence took place during the period that the Horizon system (and its pilots) was in operation
• offence types: the legislation will specify which offences are in scope, ensuring these align with the offences known to have been prosecuted by the Post Office. This means that only relevant offences such as theft and false accounting will be in scope. Non-related offences such as offences against the person will be excluded
• the contractual or other relationship of the convicted individual to Post Office Ltd:  only sub-postmasters or their employees, officers or family members, or direct employees of the Post Office are within the defined class of convictions to be quashed
• use of the Horizon system at the date of the offence: the convicted person will need to have been working (including working in a voluntary capacity) in a Post Office that was using the Horizon system software (including any relevant pilot schemes) at the time the behaviour constituting the offence occurred
• the alleged offence was committed in connection with carrying out post office business or working for the purposes of that business

Convictions in scope of this legislation will be quashed at Royal Assent and steps will then be taken to give effect to practical consequences of the quashing of convictions, such as amending criminal records. As a result of the Bill, those whose convictions have been quashed will be able to access financial redress.  

Evidence and analysis – context

This legislation will directly affect individuals whose convictions will be quashed on the coming into force of the Act. Our understanding of this group is based on information from the Post Office and criminal justice partners about some of those whose convictions may have been based on Horizon evidence, so may meet the conditions for being quashed. However, it is not certain that all these convictions will meet the conditions, nor is complete information on protected characteristics available for this group.  Alongside the commencement of legislation and quashing of convictions, work will take place to identify those individuals whose convictions meet the conditions.  

Equality duties

Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”) places a duty on ministers and the departments, when exercising their functions, to have ‘due regard’ to the need to: 

• eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the 2010 Act
• advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
• foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it

Eliminating unlawful discrimination, harassment etc and advancing equality of opportunity between different groups

We have considered the impact of the provisions of the Bill on those with relevant protected characteristics as defined in the 2010 Act, namely age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation (as relevant). 

Data supplied by the Post Office suggests that the affected group will include both men and women, individuals from different ethnic groups, and individuals of different ages. The legislation will apply in the same way to convictions in all groups and is therefore not directly discriminatory. 

A recent internal Post Office survey estimated that 43% of subpostmasters currently are from minority ethnic groups, but this only drew from a small sample. This demographic makeup may not have been exactly the same over the past 25 to 30 years when the alleged offences took place, but the survey may suggest that the legislation will have a greater impact on individuals from minority ethnic groups. However, we have no evidence that there will be any difference in the ability of convictions of individuals in different groups to meet the conditions for having a conviction quashed and therefore we do not consider that the legislation will result in indirect discrimination.   

In addition to the likely overall greater impact on individuals from minority ethnic groups, the legislation may help to advance equality of opportunity for these groups. Concerns have been expressed in the media that the post office prosecuted a disproportionately large number of subpostmasters and others from minority ethnic groups, when compared with number of prosecutions of white subpostmasters. There is no clear evidence on this, but if this is the case, the quashing of convictions will help to rectify this discrimination and advance equality between these groups.  

Individuals with convictions that do not meet the conditions set out in the Bill will not have their convictions quashed. This includes, in particular, individuals whose convictions have already been considered by the Court of Appeal. However, we do not consider that it is appropriate for legislation to quash convictions that have been considered by a senior appellate judge and since the usual appeal routes remain open to them we do not consider that the legislation results in any unlawful discrimination. 

Fostering good relations 

We do not consider that these proposals would have any significant impact on the achievement of this objective.