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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the TV dramatization of the Post Office Horizon scandal had added “urgency” to compensation payments and accused the civil service of “making a joke”.

Badenoch, who oversaw the Post Office as commercial secretary from February 2023 to July 2024, told a public inquiry into the incident on Monday that a popular ITV soap had moved the scandal up the government’s list of priorities.

happened Mr Bates vs. Post Office “That made some things happen,” he said. “Suddenly (compensation) went from a question of value for money to a question of public perception.”

The new opposition leader said civil servants wanted “legal protection” for their decisions on sub-postmaster compensation and that there was “a lot of back and forth”. . . because everyone is worried they will get in trouble later.”

Between 1999 and 2015, around 983 Post Office branch managers were convicted of crimes including theft and false accounting using evidence obtained from Japanese technology company Fujitsu’s flawed Horizon IT system.

Others were not convicted but used their personal savings to cover erroneous deficiencies.

The previous Conservative government announced in January, shortly after the ITV series aired, that it would introduce legislation to exonerate victims en masse and Offer a fixed amount of £75,000 As an alternative to a full claim for those involved in a class action lawsuit that exposed the extent of the scandal.

Nearly £440 million has so far been paid to more than 3,100 beneficiaries from four compensation schemes. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has set aside a total of £1.8bn in Labour’s first budget to cover compensation costs.

Victims complain that the compensation process is slow and administratively bogged down, and they receive offers that fall short of expectations and require formal objections.

Badenoch blamed bureaucracy and the civil service’s “government machine” for delays in compensating sub-postmasters.

Sir Alan Bates, the scandal’s chief defender, told the Financial Times that the Department for Business and Trade had adopted a legal approach that had led to squabbles between lawyers and delays in paying compensation to victims.

“It should be the responsibility of the deputy postmaster to determine what is a fair outcome,” he said.

Bates rejected two offers of compensation from the government; the latest represented about a third of its initial demand.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons business and trade committee last week, the former postmaster said he would: consider taking legal action Looking for a deadline for payments.

Current business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the inquiry earlier on Monday that he was reluctant to set a cut-off for payment claims for fear that late claimants would be exempt from compensation.

But Reynolds said he would “consider” the deadline “if we go into next year frustrated by the lack of future requests.”