What did Ed Davey's letter to Mr Bates say? Former postal affairs minister claims he was "deeply misled" about Post Office scandal

Sir Ed Davey, who serves as the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, has recently claimed that he was being misguided regarding the Horizon Scandal by the Post Office executives. The scandal has been in the headlines for some time after it was covered in a new ITV drama series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

Davey recently addressed the scandal in an interview with Times Radio on January 4, 2023, and said:

"I feel that I was deeply misled by Post Office executives ... they didn't come clean. There were definitely attempts to stop me meeting [campaigners]."

In 2010, Davey also had a meeting with Alan Bates, but before that, Davey wrote in a letter to Bates that the meeting wouldn't be of any use. He also stated:

"The integrity of the Post Office Horizon system is an operational and contractual matter for POL [Post Office Ltd], whilst I do appreciate your concerns… I do not believe a meeting would serve any useful purpose."

According to The Sun, a spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats stated that Ed Davey is trying his best to get justice for those whose lives were badly affected because of the scandal.

The BBC reports that the Horizon Scandal was the result of introducing software known as Horizon. In 1999, the software was added to the system of Post Office Limited so that it could be used for multiple reasons, but it led to cash shortfalls. Following the shortfalls, charges of theft and fraud were imposed on many branch owner-operators between 1999 and 2015.

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Ed Davey replied to Alan Bates: More details about the letters disclosed

Although Ed Davey claimed that he was "misled" by the Post Office bosses, his actions are being questioned after details related to the replies he sent to Alan Bates' letters were recently disclosed.

The letters were sent when Davey served as the postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012, as per The Sunday Times. According to the letters, Bates requested an "external investigation" to discover the issues with the Horizon system.

Davey replied to Bates by saying that the "government has adopted an arms length relationship" with the Post Office, so it had "the commercial freedom to run its business operations without interference from the shareholder."

Bates sent a final letter the following year, saying that he did not want to pursue Davey's department for taking action and that the Justice for Sub-Postmasters Alliance was already preparing to take the issue into court.

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Tory MP Paul Scully expresses criticism of Ed Davey's actions towards the scandal

Ed Davey's involvement in the scandal investigation was also criticized by Tory MP Paul Scully. In an interview with The Sun, Scully said that Ed could not prove himself as the perfect leader and that "airbrushing his actions" after many years was not justified.

Furthermore, Scully stated that Davey did not take any action against anyone and continued:

"He's now airbrushing that he didn't ask questions at the time. It doesn't feel like he was asking robust enough questions. He is trying to palm it off as something that happened ten years ago. He's not a bit-part player in this."

According to the BBC, Rishi Sunak addressed the compensation to be paid to the scandal victims during a visit to Stockport, saying that the government is trying to complete the formalities as soon as possible and that three different schemes have been introduced in the plan.

Following the release of the ITV drama series, netizens also demanded the shutdown of the Japanese company Fujitsu, which was reportedly involved in the creation of the Horizon software, leading to the scandal.