Published: 04 April 2024
By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight
Horizon Scandal: Audio files leaked to Channel 4 News appear to expose the fact that senior Post Office officials knew about flaws in the Horizon software long before they admitted it, thereby implicating them in the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of sub-postmasters. Specifically, the tapes, which feature a recording of a call between the Post Office’s chief lawyer, Susan Crichton, company secretary, Alwen Lyons, and two forensic accountants from Second Sight - the firm hired by the Post Office to conduct an independent investigation – suggest former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells was briefed by senior post office officials about a “covert operations team” at Fujitsu’s Bracknell headquarters that could remotely alter sub-postmasters’ accounts, even at the Post Office’s request. The call was made in 2013, six years before the Post Office acknowledged any wrongdoing. Company officials say on the tapes that they told Vennells about the faulty software system: “The way that I’ve tried to brief Paula is as soon as I have evidence that, you know, there is a problem she knows about it the next minute,” Lyons said. The parliamentary Business and Trade Committee says it is now considering contempt charges against Vennells and others implicated. Committee member Liam Byrne MP said: “We are deeply concerned by the latest revelations regarding the Post Office and will be exploring options for penalising the leadership that presided over the scandal.” Responding to Sky News, Vennells said: “I continue to support and focus on co-operating with the inquiry and expect to be giving evidence in the coming months. I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system. I now intend to continue to focus on assisting the inquiry and will not make any further public comment until it has concluded.” A Post Office spokesperson said: “We remain fully focused on getting to the truth of what happened and supporting the statutory Public Inquiry, which is chaired by a judge with the power to question witnesses under oath, and is therefore best placed to achieve this.” Fujitsu declined to comment.
The UK manufacturing industry has made a stronger start to the year than other advanced economies, including the USA, according to the latest closely watched S&P Global/CIPS purchasing managers’ index (PMI) survey. With a reading above 50 signifying growth, March’s survey read 50.3, up from 47.5 in February, and marking expansion for the first time in 20 months, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring, and mainly as a consequence of increased domestic demand. S&P director Rob Dobson said: "The end of the first quarter saw UK manufacturing recover from its recent doldrums. Production and new orders returned to growth, albeit only hesitantly, following year-long downturns, with the main thrust of the expansion coming from stronger domestic demand. The upturn in demand also led to improved confidence among manufacturers, with positive sentiment hitting an 11-month high. Some 58% of companies expect their output to rise over the coming year."
Eurozone Inflation: According to an estimate from Eurostat, inflation across the bloc fell to 2.4% in March, down from 2.6% in February and below the 2.5% expected by most economists. Core inflation, which strips out volatile components like food and energy, dipped to 2.9% from 3.1% in February, the first time in two years it has fallen below 3%.
Supermarket sales rose by 5.4% year-over-year in the four weeks to 23rd March market researcher NIQ says, as slowing inflation encouraged shoppers to increase their purchases.
New car sales in Britain rose about 10% in March compared with a year earlier, preliminary data from The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) shows.
Major airports are to be allowed to miss the 1st June deadline to install scanners which will end the 100ml liquid limit for airline passengers’ hand luggage. London Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester airports were said by a Department for Transport (DfT) spokesperson to have experienced delays for "genuine" reasons hence they would not be penalised. The Civil Aviation Authority will, however, will impose financial penalties on airports that keep missing deadlines, the DfT said. Some smaller airports including Luton, London City and Teesside, have already met the deadline. The rule that all liquids taken through security must be in containers of 100ml or less and be limited in number to those that can be placed in a small clear plastic bag were introduced in 2006 after a plot to bomb a transatlantic flight was foiled.
International Distributions Services (IDS), Royal Mail’s parent company, is proposing cutting deliveries of Second Class letters to just every other weekday, while keeping daily First Class post deliveries six days a week. The request, if approved by Ofcom, is expected to save up to £300m per year by reducing between 7,000 and 9,000 daily delivery routes over the next 18 to 24 months. Bulk business mail - including bills sent by utility companies - would be slowed to the second-class speed, arriving within three weekdays instead of two. IDS said there would be fewer than 1,000 voluntary redundancies linked to the changes. Ofcom has agreed Royal Mail’s current Universal Service obligation – which requires Royal Mail to deliver nationwide six days a week - needs to be reformed because so many fewer letters are being sent, down from a peak twenty years’ ago of 20bn a year to 7bn a year now. IDS said its proposed reforms could be implemented through regulatory changes, bypassing the need for legislation, and urged Ofcom to expedite the implementation of new regulations by April next year at the latest. "If we want to save the Universal Service, we have to change the Universal Service. Reform gives us a fighting chance and will help us on the path to sustainability," IDS group CEO Martin Seidenberg said.
Stamps: Meanwhile, the Telegraph reported yesterday that Royal Mail was investigating claims people had been wrongly fined a £5 penalty for allegedly sending letters using ‘counterfeit’ barcoded stamps even though they were bought from Royal Mail directly. Post Office Minister Kevin Hollinrake said he had held a meeting with Royal Mail to try to find the source of the problem. Royal Mail said it took the illegal production of counterfeit stamps seriously and that barcoded stamps had significantly reduced stamp fraud since their introduction.
Network Rail is investing £2.8bn over the next five years to protect the railway network from the impact of climate change and extreme weather. Martin Frobisher, Network Rail’s group safety and engineering director, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme yesterday: “Climate change is happening right now. It’s affecting the railway with flooding in winter and hotter summers than we’ve ever seen before.” The money will be spent on building or rebuilding more than 600,000 metres of drains and recruiting more than 400 extra drainage engineers, as well as repairing more than 20,000 cuttings and embankments to make them more resilient to issues such as flooding or landslips. The taxpayer-funded body also plans to send key operational staff to its new “weather academy” to make them “amateur meteorologists”, allowing them to interpret forecasts and make better operational decisions, The Guardian says. The spend is part of a wider £45.4bn five-year investment plan.
The Co-op, the group which runs Britain’s seventh largest supermarket chain and also has funeral, insurance and legal businesses, has posted a steep drop in annual pre-tax profits. The 180-year old firm blames the sale of its petrol forecourt business for £600m to Asda in 2022, growing competition among retailers, and a surge in shoplifting for the 89% dip in profits from £268m in 2022 to £28m in 2023. However, excluding the petrol business, profit was up by £79m for the year, the Co-op said. "Over the last two years, our net debt has reduced by 90% from over £900m to £82m today. Whilst markets remain challenging, we are firmly in control of our Co-op and our destiny," CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq said in a statement.
Telcomms: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an in-depth investigation into the planned merger between Vodafone and Three UK, saying the parties did not offer any remedies to ease concerns that in reducing the number of mobile networks from four to three, the proposed £15bn tie-up could lead to higher prices for consumers and businesses and lower levels of investment. "On 28 March 2024, the Parties informed the CMA that they would not be offering any undertakings," the regulator said in a statement on Thursday.
Isio, the pensions advisory firm which absorbed divisions of the big four accountancy firms Deloitte and KPMG, is being put up for sale by its private equity owner, Exponent, Sky News reports, adding that bankers at Evercore have been hired to run the sale auction.
Britain’s biggest train factory is preparing to lay off hundreds of staff after completing its final production run with no prospect of further work in sight, The Telegraph reports. Managers at the Alstom plant in Derby have restarted a voluntary redundancy process that was paused in January amid optimism about new government contracts. However, talks with the Department for Transport have since stalled, and Alstom is now expecting to announce cuts among its 3,000-strong workforce. Alstom has not yet raised the prospect of closing the site, which supports a further 15,000 jobs in the supply chain. However, this step is viewed as inevitable without new business to bridge a gap of more than two years until work begins on trains for HS2, the newspaper says.
Wetherspoon’s is opening at London’s Waterloo Station, it has been revealed. The new pub will be called The Lion and The Unicorn and is set to open this summer, costing £2.5m and creating 120 full- and part-time jobs. The Spoons’ said the pub was named after the Festival of Britain, held close to the site in 1951.
Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic airline said yesterday it will return to profitability this year. Strong demand for travel drove revenue up by £265m to a record £3.1bn in 2023. The airline, which is 49%-owned by Delta Air Lines reported an adjusted pre-tax loss of £139m for 2023 compared to a loss of £206m in 2022.
The Skinny Food Co: An advert posted by Katie Price on Instagram promoting a low-calorie diet for The Skinny Food Co has been banned by the advertising watchdog. In the video, posted last August, the former glamour model detailed her meals adding up to only 755 calories a day, far lower than the recommended daily intake of around 2,000 calories a day for women and 2,500 for men. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ad was "irresponsible" and must not appear again. In the UK, adverts promoting diets that fall below 800 calories must do so only for short-term use and must encourage users to take medical advice before embarking on them.
Share Trading: The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has conducted a risk analysis on choosing stocks based on social media tips and concluded doing so might generate big returns in the short term, but not in the longer run. The influence of such tips also raises concerns over investor protection and keeping markets orderly, the watchdog said yesterday. The power of social media in hyping up trading was seen in January 2021, when "meme stock" GameStop surged by as much as 1,600% on Wall Street as amateur investors piled into the videogame retailer's shares, Reuters said.
Google is considering putting some of its AI-powered services behind a paywall, and charging for such “premium” features, according to the Financial Times. If it goes ahead with the plan, it would be the first time the search giant, which is owned by Alphabet, has charged for any of its core products.
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