Post Office Horizon scandal lead campaigner Sir Alan Bates has urged victims of the Horizon scandal to take legal action against the government over compensation delays.
Suggesting that it would be November 2027 before all the claims are finished based on the current rate of progress, Sir Alan in an email to the fellow victims has stated that going to court was "probably the quickest way to ensure fairness for all".
Compensation claims are processed through schemes administered by the Department of Business and Trade (DBT).
Sir Alan said one scheme in particular - the group litigation order (GLO) scheme for the 555 people who successfully took legal action against the Post Office and exposed the scandal - was "a mess".
The problem was not unique to the GLO scheme, Sir Alan said, adding that the majority of applicants have had "substantially undervalued offers" from the government, Sir Alan said.
"The DBT lawyers appear to be taking every opportunity to challenge figures when the DBT has already paid for your lawyers to test and verify the claims before they are submitted.
"It appears that the DBT will pay out the smaller claims of about 60 to 80 per cent of value, but the larger, which form the bulk of the outstanding claims, are continually being fought by DBT's lawyers."
More information is regularly sought from the victim, which Sir Alan said was "obviously not available" and delayed compensation offers.
"They also seem to be reducing offers by 50 per cent where a spouse is involved, and it seems they will use almost any other tactic to ensure that the DBT does not have to pay out what has already been verified before the claim was submitted," he stated.
Citing figures from the department, Sir Alan's email said 66 cases had been fully settled in the last six months, with 210 yet to be settled.
"There may be other options but the one which is repeatedly mentioned is a judicial review, not just for the GLO Scheme but to include all of the schemes to ensure there is parity in the way victims have, and are, being treated," the email said.
Victims from each scheme would need to come forward to move the campaign on, Sir Alan said, as he urged people to "step up".
A national fundraising campaign may be needed to cover the costs of this action, the email added, which Sir Alan said he may be able to help set up.
The government had said in October 2023 it was "determined to deliver" the GLO scheme by August 2024 and last year rejected a March 2025 deadline sought by campaigners for all payments to be finalised.
"We will be able to get substantial redress paid out to those individuals by the end of March"; Post Office minister Gareth Thomas told the Commons in December.
Responding to Sir Alan's suggestion it would take until 2027 to settle all claims, a government spokesperson said, "we do not accept this forecast".
"The facts show we are making almost 90 per cent of initial GLO offers within 40 working days of receiving completed claims. As of 31 March, 76 per cent of the group had received full and final redress, or 80 per cent of their offer."
"So long as claimants respond reasonably promptly, we would expect to settle all claims by the end of this year.
"We have trebled the number of payments under this government and are settling claims at a faster rate than ever before to provide full and fair redress."
UK business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told Sky News, "We'll never be able to go as fast as we would want, but we've massively increased the pace of compensation because it is so important to me personally to the department and to all of this new government... everyone in the country wants this resolved as quickly as possible and that's why we've increased the pace so much.
"But I can only go off the data, and the data tells me we've had this massive increase in compensation payments since the election, and we will not stop until we've done the right thing by everybody."
