Fujitsu risks £355m Brexit contract over the scandal

FUJITSU should be stripped of its £355 million contract running the Brexit border in the Irish Sea unless it pays compensation to postmasters over the Horizon IT scandal, senior politicians have said.

That bill is likely to run to millions of pounds after Rishi Sunak announced plans on Wednesday to exonerate postmasters after “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history”, and ministers urged Fujitsu to pay up.

The Japanese multinational led a consortium that won the lucrative government contract in 2020 for the Trader Support Service (TSS), an IT and advice system which helped companies move goods from Britain to Northern Ireland.

The TSS is the largest single outlay of taxpayer’s money on post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, and one of Fujitsu’s near-200 deals with the Government, which are worth £6.8 billion. The contract for running the freeto-use TSS was extended in 2023 until the end of 2024.

Fujitsu is also in the running for a £180 million contract to streamline UK post-Brexit trade through a “Single Trade window.” Politicians in London and Belfast want any further deals frozen until Fujitsu agrees to contribute to the compensation package for postmasters.

The inquiry into the scandal is currently being held in London.

“There needs to be accountability,” Lord Dodds, a DUP peer, said. He said it was scandalous to make a “tidy profit” out of the contentious Brexit border at the same time as not paying compensation.

The DUP has boycotted power-sharing in Stormont for the past 23 months over the Irish Sea border, which introduced checks and controls on British goods. It was created to prevent a hard land border with EU member Ireland after Brexit, which it was feared could put the peace process at risk.

The DUP boycott continued despite the Windsor Framework, which was agreed in February 2023 by the UK and EU to replace the Northern Ireland Protocol. That deal introduced red and green lanes to reduce the border checks, which Fujitsu now facilitates through the TSS.

Doug Beattie is the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, which had reservations about the Irish Sea border but has urged the DUP to return to Stormont.

“As a Northern Irish politician, I am concerned that this discredited company now has an important part to play in delivering the Windsor Framework red and green lanes,” he said.

Sir Ed Davey was the Post Office minister from May 2010 until February 2012