My Lords, I recognise the feeling of the Committee on this issue and, frankly, I recognise the feeling of the whole country with respect to Horizon. I thank all those who have spoken for a really enlightening debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for tabling the amendment and my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot for speaking to it and—if I may depart from the script—his heroic behaviour with respect to the sub-postmasters.
There can be no doubt that hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have suffered an intolerable miscarriage of justice at the hands of the Post Office. I hope noble Lords will indulge me if I speak very briefly on that. On 13 March, the Government introduced the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill into Parliament, which is due to go before a Committee of the whole House in the House of Commons on 29 April. The Bill will quash relevant convictions of individuals who worked, including on a voluntary basis, in Post Office branches and who have suffered as a result of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. It will quash, on a blanket basis, convictions for various theft, fraud and related offences during the period of the Horizon scandal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is to be followed by swift financial redress delivered by the Department for Business and Trade.
On the amendment laid by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron—I thank her and the noble Lords who have supported it—I fully understand the intent behind
this amendment, which aims to address issues with computer evidence such as those arising from the Post Office cases. The common law presumption, as has been said, is that the computer which has produced evidence in a case was operating effectively at the material time unless there is evidence to the contrary, in which case the party relying on the computer evidence will need to satisfy the court that the evidence is reliable and therefore admissible.
This amendment would require a party relying on computer evidence to provide proof up front that the computer was operating effectively at the time and that there is no evidence of improper use. I and my fellow Ministers, including those at the MoJ, understand the intent behind this amendment, and we are considering very carefully the issues raised by the Post Office cases in relation to computer evidence, including these wider concerns. So I would welcome the opportunity for further meetings with the noble Baroness, alongside MoJ colleagues. I was pleased to hear that she had met with my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor on this matter.
We are considering, for example, the way reliability of evidence from the Horizon system was presented, how failures of investigation and disclosure prevented that evidence from being effectively challenged, and the lack of corroborating evidence in many cases. These issues need to be considered carefully, with the full facts in front of us. Sir Wyn Williams is examining in detail the failings that led to the Post Office scandal. These issues are not straightforward. The prosecution of those cases relied on assertions that the Horizon system was accurate and reliable, which the Post Office knew to be wrong. This was supported by expert evidence, which it knew to be misleading. The issue was that the Post Office chose to withhold the fact that the computer evidence itself was wrong.
This amendment would also have a significant impact on the criminal justice system. Almost all criminal cases rely on computer evidence to some extent, so any change to the burden of proof would or could impede the work of the Crown Prosecution Service and other prosecutors.
Although I am not able to accept this amendment for these reasons, I share the desire to find an appropriate way forward along with my colleagues at the Ministry of Justice, who will bear the brunt of this work, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, alluded to. I look forward to meeting the noble Baroness to discuss this ahead of Report. Meanwhile, I hope she will withdraw her amendment.