Horizon bugs, errors and defects known about by ‘all parties’ for ‘many, many years’ says Fujitsu boss – UK politics live

Sam Fowles was part of the legal team that successfully overturned the convictions of 39 sub-postmasters in the court of appeal in 2021, and he has written for the Guardian today:

Ministers (at least in public) are now railing against Fujitsu. Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, suggested the company may have to repay the “fortune” spent on the scandal. The business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, has “demanded” talks about Fujitsu’s contribution to the compensation scheme for victims. Any attempt by the government to use the courts to force Fujitsu to pay up will face headwinds. Paul Patterson told MPs that Fujitsu had a “moral obligation” to contribute to the compensation scheme. His choice of language is telling; the words allow Fujitsu to appear contrite without admitting any legal – and therefore enforceable – liability.

Read more from Sam Fowles’ opinion piece here: Fujitsu will never be held accountable for the Post Office scandal. It is too important to this government

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has broken for lunch and will resume at 2pm.

Paul Patterson told the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry that he was “surprised” that details of bugs, errors and defects (BEDs) in the scandal-hit software were not included in witness statements for criminal proceedings against post office operators.

The Fujitsu director said some witness statements used in the prosecutions of post office operators were “misleading” as they did not mention that the company provided incomplete audit data to the Post Office.

Patterson also told the probe he did not believe Fujitsu “knew at the time” that the Post Office was prosecuting post office operators based on the inaccurate data it was providing to them.

The morning session established that when handing data over to the Post Office, “members of the [Fujitsu] SSC (software support centre) undertook a process of filtering ARQ (audit) data before it was provided to the Post Office, and that filtering of data meant that some relevant data may not have been provided to the Post Office”.

Witness statements used in the prosecution, however, “give the impression that all the raw data” had been passed over.

The counsel to the inquiry went on: “So if the evidence that we’ve heard from Fujitsu witnesses this week is correct, then a witness statement that followed the template and didn’t mention the filtering out exercise, would mean that the witness statement was false and misleading by omission, wouldn’t it?”

Patterson said: “I think the witness statement generally needed to be more comprehensive and it absolutely missed those points you’ve just alluded to and it would be misleading.”

The statutory inquiry, which began in 2021, was established to ensure there was a “public summary of the failings which occurred with the Horizon IT system at the Post Office” and which subsequently led to the wrongful convictions of post office operators.

The Post Office began rolling out the Horizon IT system in 1999, and prosecutions continued until 2015, despite the apparent knowledge there were flaws in the system. Patterson has been CEO of Fujitsu Europe since July 2019.

Graeme Wearden

Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter has said it is “unacceptable” that the government are allowing Tata to cut so many jobs in Port Talbot, by not following the alternatives proposed by the GMB and Community unions.

Slaughter says:

This is devastating news for the local community and beyond. Wales knows only too well what happens when communities are abandoned by government and industries. We saw it with the coal industry and now it is happening again with the steel industry. Decarbonisation of industry is vital, but communities and people’s jobs must be protected.

The GMB and Community unions say it is “extremely disappointing” that Tata rejected its proposal to keep blast furnaces running.

In a joint statement, describing the decision as “an absolute disgrace”, the unions say:

It’s unbelievable any Government would give a company £500m to throw 3,000 workers on the scrapheap, and our Government must reevaluate its miserly offer to support investment at Tata Steel. The German, French and Spanish Governments are all committing billions to secure the future of their strategically important steel industries, and our Government must show similar ambition.

A UK government spokesperson has said there is help available for those losing their jobs in Port Talbot.

Follow the latest developments with the Tata Steel plant with Graeme Wearden: Tata Steel accused of ‘industrial vandalism’ over plan to cut up to 2,800 UK jobs – business live

A planned strike by thousands of construction workers at energy sites across the UK has been called off, PA Media reports.

More than 3,000 workers at Stanlow, Fawley, Valero, Grangemouth and Mossmorran oil refineries, as well as at Sellafield nuclear facility had voted in favour of industrial action.

Unions said they had accepted a pay deal worth more than 17% over two years, with improvements to sick pay and other allowances.

Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, said: “These skilled workers have fought for the pay rise they so richly deserve. They should be rightly proud of themselves.”

Downing Street has added to Rishi Sunak’s earlier statement that he was “determined” to get the Rwanda bill through parliament “as quickly as possible” by saying it was “confident” Rwanda would implement improved measures into its asylum system in time for a new treaty with the UK being ratified by parliament.

The House of Lords International Agreements Committee said “significant legal and practical steps” must be taken before Rwanda can be deemed safe and the treaty approved by Westminster.

Asked whether ministers would be following through on the committee’s recommendations, the prime minister’s spokesperson said:

So I think more broadly on the process, we will let it follow its course as it is looked at in the Lords. We will consider issues that are raised – motions and amendments – in the usual way.

In terms of the improvements and the assurances that we have with the government of Rwanda, we are confident that there will be implementation of all of those measures in line with the timelines for the treaty.

So those assurances that we provided, which responded to issues raised by the supreme court, will be in place when we get flights off the ground.

The spokesperson declined to get into specualtion about how the government might react to changes to the bill introduced during its passage, saying: “I’m not going to get ahead of parliamentary processes and processes in the Lord’s – that starts to get into hypotheticals.”

Earlier today the prime minister said:

In order to fully solve this problem we need to have a deterrent, so that when people come here illegally they won’t be able to stay and will be removed.

That is why the Rwanda scheme is so important, and that’s why I’m determined to get it through parliament and get it up and running as quickly as possible so we can properly solve this problem.

In November, five judges at the supreme court unanimously upheld an appeal court ruling that found there was a real risk of deported refugees having their claims in the east African country wrongly assessed or being returned to their country of origin to face persecution.

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry has restarted. Fujitsu Europe’s CEO is giving evidence. You can watch it here:

 

Here is political correspondent Kiran Stacey’s report on the Home Office hiring an air hangar to practise deportations:

The Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.

Officials confirmed on Friday the department had increased its capacity to train officials to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist. Details of the expansion of the programme were first reported by the Times. The specialist training, which the government has carried out for years, will also be given to staff who deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

Since 2015, the government has had training facilities to ensure escorts can respond professionally to the challenges of removing people with no right to be in the UK. This includes practical sessions so escorts have the skills they need to deal with different scenarios. As we ramp up removal activity we will continue to ensure new escorts have the training facilities necessary.

A government source said the department had recently hired the hangar and fuselage so that staff could practise accompanying people on to planes and learn what to do if they resisted either by fighting back or refusing to move.

It comes as the government steadily increases the number of people it deports after a sharp drop during Covid and as a result of the new returns deal with Albania. In the year to March 2023, Britain forcibly returned 4,193 people, nearly a third more than in the previous 12 months.

Read more here: Home Office hires hangar for staff to practise Rwanda deportations

During his media appearance this morning, prime minister Rishi Sunak added to speculation on pre-election tax cuts by saying there was “more to come” if voters stuck with the Conservatives.

Speaking to broadcasters during his visit to Hampshire, Sunak said a 2p cut to the main rate of national insurance that came into force this month had been a “tax cut for 27 million people in work”

He continued:

And we said that we do want to cut taxes for future events when we can responsibly do so. Our priorities are very clear. It is controlling spending and welfare so that we can cut people’s taxes. The plan is working, because we are already doing it – stick with it and there is more to come.

Inflation unexpectedly jumped on Wednesday, and this morning figures revealed retailers in Great Britain suffered a dire Christmas, with shops recording the biggest fall in monthly sales since closing during the pandemic.

Yesterday, speaking in Davos, where he was attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, chancellor Jeremy Hunt said:

In terms of the direction of travel we look around the world and we note that the economies growing faster than us in North America and Asia tend to have lower taxes, and I believe fundamentally that low-tax economies are more dynamic, more competitive and generate more money for public services like the NHS. That’s the direction of travel we would like to go in but it is too early to say what we are going to do.”

My colleague, Phillip Inman, writing an analysis piece for the Guardian today, said that the surprise fall in December sales damages the chancellor’s claims that the UK economy is on right track, and suggests it was probably in recession during the second half of 2023.

Read more of Phillip Inman’s analysis here: Retail slump raises spectre of recession as Hunt looks more Truss-like by the day

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is taking a break until 11.45am. I would say the main thing we have learned this morning is that Paul Patterson, CEO of Fujitsu’s Europe region, is not the kind of boss who worked their way up from the factory floor starting as an IT developer, as the technical evidence on bugs and defects was a lengthy series of awkward exchanges.

On the business side of things, he described the editing of witness statements that were used to prosecute post office operators to defend the Horizon IT system as “shameful”.

He told the inquiry bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon IT system were known about by “all parties” and had been known for “many, many years”.

He was asked if “each and every bug was notified to the Post Office contemporaneously, or more or less contemporaneously, or is it the case that there may have been some bugs which were not?”

To that he replied “the vast majority of bugs and errors and defects were shared”, but conceded he didn’t know off the top of his head whether an example shown to the inquiry had been.

The session finished with him being grilled on why, in the process documents outlining the information gathering and disclosure during a prosecution, the list of known bugs and defects wasn’t part of that.

When asked by the media this morning, Rishi Sunak played down the prospect of packing more peers into the House of Lords in order to pass his controversial Rwanda Bill.

Speaking to reporters in Hampshire, he told the PA news agency:

We shouldn’t be talking about these things because the House of Lords will be able to see that this is part of the strong majority in the Commons, they can see that this is a national priority.

And I would urge them strongly to crack on with it because we all just want to get this done.

The country is fed up and frustrated with the merry-go-round on this topic.

I think people can appreciate that we have made progress last year, but we now need to finish the job and that’s why we should pass this scheme as quickly as possible.

The House of Lords already numbers 785 members, making it the second-largest legislative chamber in the world, behind only the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, which numbers nearly 3,000 members.

PA Media has just published a quick snap that Tata Steel has confirmed its plans to close blast furnaces at its plant in Port Talbot with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.

You can follow that live with my colleague Graeme Wearden here:

My colleagues Mark Sweney and Rob Davies have this updated wrap-up of the news on the expected Tata Steel Port Talbot blast furnace shutdown.

The owners of the Port Talbot steelworks are expected to confirm the shutdown of its blast furnaces on Friday morning, putting almost 3,000 jobs at risk.

Trade union representatives have gathered outside the gates of the works in south Wales to protest against the decision, which members have said will be a “crushing blow” to workers and UK steelmaking.

The owners of Port Talbot steelworks have rejected a trade union plan designed to keep its blast furnaces running.

An announcement confirming the decision is expected before midday on Friday, after trading on the stock exchange ends in Mumbai. Shares in Port Talbot’s owner, Indian-owned Tata, rose 2% in trading, ending a two-day decline.

Read Mark Sweney and Rob Davies’ report here: Port Talbot steelworks owners expected to confirm blast furnace shutdown

Just on Northern Ireland and Stormont for a moment, the Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has said he will introduce “pragmatic, appropriate and limited” legislation to try to break the political deadlock.

He said the legislation would “support Northern Ireland departments to manage the immediate and evident challenges they face in stabilising public services and finances”.

In Northern Ireland this morning, the Belfast Telegraph is reporting, via the BBC Nolan show, that the DUP are to have a “crunch” meeting today. It reports:

A senior source was quoted by the show saying the numbers in the party of those who wished to return to the Assembly compared with those opposed “are so close” and that any vote on returning may come down to one or two individuals.

The source in the show was also quoted as saying: “Get it all up and running by next week and move on from the Windsor framework.”

The assembly in Northern Ireland has been paralysed since May 2022.