TV drama changed attitude to Post Office payouts - Badenoch

The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has told an inquiry it is "extremely disappointing" that it took the ITV drama about the Post Office scandal to get the government to accelerate compensation payments for wrongfully prosecuted branch owner-operators.

- Mark Sweney

Badenoch, the new leader of the opposition who held the post of business secretary for 17 months until the general election, said she and her then postal affairs minister, Kevin Hollinrake, had been working behind the scenes to get the Treasury to sign off on funding for more rapid and generous payouts for post office operators affected by the Horizon IT scandal.

Badenoch appeared before the public inquiry into the scandal yesterday. The inquiry was shown a letter she sent in August 2023 to the then chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, asking for funding to increase payments to improve the compensation schemes.

He rejected the request and "encouraged" her "to explore the full breadth of other options".

"I was not expecting the documentary [the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office] in January, which helped speed things along," said Badenoch. "It suddenly turned it from a value-for-money question to a public perception question.