In per week when the UK authorities responds to the Horizon inquiry report suggestions, you will need to take inventory of the place we’re. The Submit Workplace Horizon scandal destroyed lives. Over 1,000 sub-postmasters had been wrongly prosecuted, and hundreds extra had their reputations shattered and livelihoods torn away. Households had been damaged, some victims died earlier than they may clear their names, and all of this devastation stemmed from a defective IT system constructed and maintained by Fujitsu.
This was not a minor failure. It was a nationwide scandal – one of many gravest miscarriages of justice in British historical past. And but, even now, Fujitsu continues to revenue handsomely from authorities contracts. Within the final 12 months alone, it has secured 20 contracts price almost £800 million. That is regardless of Fujitsu acknowledging its wrongdoing, when its European CEO, Paul Patterson admitted to parliament in 2024 that the corporate has a “ethical obligation to contribute”, and that it might stop bidding for brand new contracts.
But, the income proceed to build up for them – in April 2025 the corporate was awarded a £125 million contract to construct Northern Eire’s new land registry system, and they’re in reside re-tender negotiations with HMRC for the Dealer Help Service (TSS), one other profitable £370 million contract to help post-Brexit buying and selling preparations between Nice Britain and Northern Eire.
Allow us to be clear: justice isn’t served when victims stay uncompensated by Fujitsu, while the corporate on the coronary heart of their struggling is rewarded with profitable new enterprise from the general public purse. As an alternative, to make sure that victims obtain the restitution they rightfully deserve, taxpayers have shouldered your entire burden thus far – paying over £1 billion to over 7,900 people with extra claims nonetheless to come back. Worse nonetheless, leaked paperwork revealed that while Fujitsu prevented paying compensation, it spent £27 million on PR corporations, consultants, and attorneys underneath a mission code-named “Holly” to guard its status.
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That is indefensible. It’s indefensible to the sub-postmasters who misplaced every part. It’s indefensible to taxpayers who proceed to foot the invoice. And it’s indefensible to public belief in authorities, which is already in fragile provide.
The query the federal government should reply is that this: what message does it ship when an organization chargeable for such catastrophic hurt remains to be trusted to run our most crucial methods? Rewarding failure tells the general public that accountability is elective, and that penalties are negotiable. This corrodes belief not simply within the procurement of public companies, however in authorities itself.
Alongside greater than 70 parliamentarians, we submitted a cross-party letter to the prime minister which makes the case plainly. Fujitsu ought to face an instantaneous overview of its eligibility for public contracts. And till it makes significant contributions to compensation and demonstrates real remediation, it shouldn’t be allowed to revenue additional on the public’s expense.
Some will argue that Fujitsu is just too entrenched to be excluded, that we’re ‘over a barrel’. We reject that argument. If there are various suppliers for Grenfell-related contracts – the place corporations have confronted exclusion underneath the Procurement Act – then there are options right here too. The federal government should present it has the braveness to behave within the public curiosity, not within the comfort of sustaining the established order.
We all know procurement processes are complicated, and that Fujitsu’s contracts can’t be unpicked in a single day. However management means making selections – and the selection right here is straightforward. Can we proceed rewarding an organization that presided over one of the damaging scandals in our historical past, or can we lastly draw a line and say: not in our title, not with our cash?
The victims of Horizon have waited too lengthy for justice. They need to not have to look at the corporate accountable proceed to thrive whereas their struggling stays unresolved. The federal government should act now.
As a result of in terms of justice for the sub-postmasters, for taxpayers, for public belief itself – justice delayed is justice denied.
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