THE TUC has accused the Tories of ignoring warnings going back years over the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

The union body said ministers refused to put safeguards in place to prevent future scandals involving publicly awarded contracts when it blocked measures in the Procurement Act last year.

These included making private firms delivering public contracts subject to freedom of information (FOI) requests, the creation of a statutory oversight body and the introduction of a “public interest” test when outsourcing contracts.