Parliament is about to have an emergency debate on the Horizon crisis as anger over the treatment of sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were wrongfully prosecuted for alleged fraud grows.
Within days, lawmakers are expected to discuss the startling discoveries that Scotland Yard is currently looking into.
On Monday, during a discussion, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle may allow an urgent question about the incident that has outraged millions of people nationwide after being dramatised in ITV’s Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office.
Alternatively, he might consent to a Standing Order 24 (SO24) process that would result in an urgent discussion, perhaps this Tuesday or later in the week.
Labour MP Kevan Jones and Tory Sir David Davis are pressing for a debate.
Former Cabinet minister Sir David, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, stressed that it was down to the Speaker whether one is held.
However, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We will get it (a debate) either today or tomorrow.
“This is such a big issue, there are now tens of millions of people who care about this.
“They are furious about it in many cases.”
Tory peer Lord Arbuthnot, who played a key role when an MP in exposing the scandal, called for the huge number of wrongful prosecutions to be dealt with in a “mass way”.
“One of the greatest problems is that there have been between 700 and 900 convictions of subpostmasters and only 93 have been overturned.
“That is an awfully small, pathetically small number.
“Parliament has got to step in and say that Post Office convictions are not safe.
Post Office executives also face being summoned back to appear before the Commons Business and Trade Committee which has probed why it has taken so long for wrongly convicted and prosecuted postmasters and postmistresses to be compensated.
The MPs emphasised that “the Committee is likely to return to the issues raised once the Independent Review into the Post Office Ltd has been completed” and wanted updates from the Post Office on the incident.
More than a million people have signed a petition demanding that Paula Vennells, the former head of the Post Office, be stripped of her CBE in light of the Horizon affair.