Post Office bosses trade blows over probe claims
POST Office turmoil intensified last night after the company’s ousted chairman insisted its current chief executive is the subject of an internal investigation, not him.
Former chair Henry Staunton was sacked last month by the Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch who said bullying accusations had been made against him.
But Mr Staunton told MPs on the Business and Trade Committee yesterday that it was the CEO Nick Read who was being investigated.
Mr Staunton said the Post Office boss “fell out” with the business’s human resources director and said his own behaviour was only referenced once in an 80-page document about Mr Read. The former chairman said there was one paragraph in the report on alleged politically incorrect remarks made by him and he “strenuously denied” the claim.
He told MPs: “This was a big investigation into Nick. And I didn’t realise you weren’t aware of that.” Asked if he was informed his behaviour was under investigation in November last year, Mr Staunton said: “What there is, actually, is Mr Read fell out with his HR director and she produced a ‘speak up’ document 80 pages thick.” He also claimed Mr Read told him that he wanted to resign and was unhappy with his salary, saying: “I must have had four conversations when he said he was going to chuck it in.”
Downing Street said PM Rishi Sunak had confidence in Mr Read following the claims of Mr Staunton who told the committee he has been the victim of a “smear campaign” since his public fallout with Ms Badenoch.
Mr Staunton previously claimed he had been told to delay payouts to subpostmasters affected by problems with the Horizon computer system. It sparked a furious row with the Business Secretary, who accused him of spreading “made-up anecdotes”.
But Mr Staunton doubled-down on his claims, telling MPs that in a meeting with senior civil servant Sarah Munby last year he was “left in no doubt that this was not a time to rip off the band aid”.
Mr Read had earlier insisted he did not believe anyone at the company was told by the Government to slow down the payments of compensation to subpostmasters.
Meanwhile, former postmaster and lead campaigner Alan Bates told the committee the Government should “get on and pay people” amid continued fall-out from the Horizon IT scandal. He said the Post Office should be “sold to someone like Amazon for £1” and described it as a “dead duck” that is “going to be a money pit for the taxpayer in the years to come”.