LABOUR has demanded to know why the chairman of the Post Office has been sacked although not in charge when hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses were unjustly prosecuted during the Horizon computer scandal.
Henry Staunton was appointed Post Office chairman in December 2022, decades after the scandal began, but was sacked on Saturday by Tory Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.
Labour has questioned the move, saying ministers must explain it.
Today shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “The person who’s going wasn’t actually there for the scandal, so there must be specific reasons why [the government] don’t have confidence in that person going on.
“I think the public will want to know this is not just about one person, one chair being changed.
“The overall approach and the entire organisation is going to come to terms with the scale of this and put it right, and also, fundamentally, people want to see the sub-postmasters exonerated and compensation got to them as soon as possible.”
Announcing the sacking on Saturday, a government spokesperson said the Business Secretary and Mr Staunton “agreed to part ways with mutual consent.”
“An interim will be appointed shortly and a recruitment process for a new chair will be launched in due course, in accordance with the governance code for public appointments.”
Ms Badenoch insisted today that she was forced to intervene over “difficulties” with Post Office governance by sacking Mr Staunton.
“The issues that the Post Office have go well beyond the Horizon scandal, so this wasn’t just about Horizon and the ongoing inquiry into the Post Office; it’s about the Post Office as an entity and the governance of it,” she said.
Hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses are still awaiting compensation despite the government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts.
The Post Office and Royal Mail were split in April 2012 when the latter was privatised.
The government became the sole shareholder owning the Post Office in a move which the Communication Workers’ Union described as “blatant back-door privatisation.”
