My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his opening remarks, not least for their tone, which this House has always got right. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti—except for her suggestion that this should be called the Arbuthnot Act. She made the very important point about blanket exoneration. We must not force these traumatised people back before the courts that did them such injury. I am grateful also to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for his important remarks about auditors, who have escaped much scrutiny. Maybe that will change in the coming weeks and months.
I declare my interest as a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. I put my name down for this debate intending to use this speech to call on the Government to announce the wholesale exoneration of all those convicted as a result of Post Office evidence since the introduction of Horizon. I thank the Prime Minister for making that unnecessary, which will shorten this speech dramatically. He has been well supported and motivated in this by the excellent Post Office Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, and his formidable team. I shall not in this Second Reading debate succumb to the temptation to travel widely beyond the contents of this Bill, which is very short. I have spent the last week trespassing far too much on people’s patience, on TV and radio and in the newspapers. I apologise for that and feel—