Davey apologises after criticism

So a day the leader of the Liberal Democrats doesn’t really need any introduction is with us. Now you’re worried about car thefts? Yeah, we didn’t. Some free information requests of police forces across the country and they show that over 1 / 7 out of 10 car thefts aren’t attended by police. And when we’ve been knocking on doors in the up to these elections, people have saying they’re concerned about the NHS, cost of living, the environment. But they’ve also been raising crime with us, car thefts, burglaries and social behaviour. And they feel that they don’t have the community police officers in their neighbourhoods and they feel that a lot of crimes they report just go uninvestigated. And these figures show that’s absolutely true when it comes to car theft. And it affects all of us because even if your car’s not been pinched, then your car insurance is still going up and went up 15% this year. Absolutely right, Katie. I mean, car insurance is going through the roof. It’s just another aspect of cost of living. And when car thefts and burglaries aren’t investigated and and and the crime solved, what that means is your house insurance, your car insurance goes up and makes the cost of living worse, as well as, frankly, the trauma. You know, when people lose their car, that’s bad enough. And then when they feel that the police aren’t able to investigate. So one of the things that Liberal Democrats are calling for today is to make sure there’s a massive increase in detectives. What’s really interesting when you dig down into what the conservatives have failed to do, they’ve failed to recruit enough detectives. In fact, the shortage of detectives has been getting worse in recent times. The expert tellers. We’ve probably got a shortage across the whole of the country of 7000 detectives. And without those trained people, we’re not going to solve car thefts, we’re not gonna solve burglaries, and we’re not gonna get the crime rate down. Well, I’ve got you face to face. Let’s sort this post office thing out once and for all. Alan Bates isn’t very happy with you. He says he took offence to your suggestion that the government had an arms length relationship with the post office. What would you say in response? Well, I apologised to him already. What happened was I was in office for 11 days and was asked whether I would meet him. And I was told that the tradition had been that we didn’t meet people because the post office was run by the post office executives and it was an arms arms length relationship as he said. And then he wrote back to me and the officials told me the the letter was pretty tough, which it was as we heard at the inquiry. And I agree that I shouldn’t meet him. And so I was actually the 1st Post Office minister to meet him. He he is, he was an amazing guy, as everyone now knows. And I put his concerns to Post Office executives. His main concern, as we saw in the drama, as we’ve seen in the inquiry and indeed as we saw in the 2019 High Court case, was the post office was saying there was remote, no remote access to the Horizon system and therefore the sub postmaster was responsible for the system. And he was claimed that couldn’t be the case. So I put that very important IT issue to post office executives and to officials and they said no, there was no remote access at all. Now Kay, what’s so shocking, and this has come out through the enquiry, is that they knew all along there was remote access. So they must have lied to me, to previous ministers, took ministers after me and they lied not just sub postmasters who the victims is, but the courts and the judges and the lawyers. So this was this was lies on an industrial scale and why I actually support people who say that the people who are responsible for this must be held to account and if that means them being taken to court and going to prison, so be it. But if you hadn’t kept the post office at arm’s length, or if they hadn’t kept you at arm’s length, potentially this, none of this would have happened. Well, the arms length relationship, which has been there for a long time, needs to be questioned too. One of the things I’m concerned about with the questions. At the time I didn’t realise it was a problem, if I’m honest with you, but we now see because it was arms length. Well, I indeed, but you know, I I I had inherited this had been the case for for decades as far as I can see and what I’m doing. Want to follow the pack though minister. Well I was minister. I was wanting to change the post office management but not because of this. I wasn’t aware of that this problem. I didn’t think the post office was as well managed. It should be keeping more of an eye on them. Well, we were trying to reform the post office because the issue that I was facing was post offices closing up and down the country. But the horizon system, which is the the the scandal, which is a huge scandal was hardly raising me at all. Besides, Mr. Bates, what I what I did was I tried to make sure that his questions were answered. Unfortunately, I was lied to. Yeah, but given that you were unhappy with those that were running the post office, why didn’t you? You were responsible for the post office. As for as far as the country is concerned, why weren’t you keeping a closer eye on them? Well, I asked the them the questions that Mister Bates was asking. That was quite the right thing to do. I pushed them on it. And I’m afraid every time we had a letter in from an MP, we didn’t have that very. Get them in your office. Well, you were the boss. Well, we asked them the questions. Unfortunately, we were lied to. And when people lie on such industrial scale, Kay, it’s very difficult. And what we saw in courts, in judges up and down the country, they were lied to, even they were having detailed analysis of the evidence. And what is absolutely shocking, what are you sorry for? Well, I’m sorry for two things. I’m sorry that I didn’t see Mr. Bates off his first letter. It took me 5 months to see him or that I was the first post office minister to see him. And I’m sorry that I didn’t see through the lies. I mean the lies. Sorry that you were not more inquisitive. Well, I I asked the questions to be fair to me, you you’ve already said, Sir Ed this morning that you didn’t like the way it was being run the Post Office. If that’s for other issues, let me take you through them. Yeah, we wanted to make sure ’cause I think the Post Office serves a good, interesting and important role in communities. And what was happening was they were closing down. And we want to make sure that didn’t happen because I’ve got shield respect for what’s happening was that they were lying through their teeth and people were taking their own lives. Well, you’re right, they were. And you were responsible for the Post Office at that time. To to be fair to me and to other ministers, it was run at arm’s length. And that’s what’s got to change. One of the things that I think is so important from all this is we need we at the time. Well, because I didn’t win at the time, ’cause I didn’t know it was a scandal at the time. That’s because you weren’t working closely enough with them. Well, the system was wrong, the system is broken and one of the things, and as the minister you could have changed that. Well, I didn’t realise it was broken at the time, ’cause you were keeping them at arms length. Well, because that was the system and what I’d like to see, Kay, and I think it’s really, Are you embarrassed? What? I’d really like to see Kay, and this is a very, very important point, is not just the important compensation for post office. So postmasters, going back to your role at the time when you wouldn’t initially speak to, it’s all very important. Alan Bates is not happy with you at all. Do you? Are you embarrassed, looking back that you didn’t do more? Well, I’m not, actually, but I’m sorry that I didn’t sue through the lies. I really am sorry I didn’t sue through the lies, but I think like all of them you don’t think you have anything to be embarrassed for about? Well I I didn’t see through the lies and I’m sorry about that. It really is very frustrating that I was lied to, ministers from other political parties were lied to and the judges and courts and of course above all the sub postmasters were lied to. And what we have to do through the inquiry is understand what happened. And to your point about the arms length issue, that system has to go. It’s not acceptable that we have arms lengths policies, not just the post office, actually. Years ago indeed. And why hasn’t the government acted more quickly? Why didn’t you act at the time? What I did, I saw Mr. Bates and I only after he pressed you. Yeah. And. And I was the first post office minister to see him, to be fair, Kay. And having seen him, I put his questions. And this is the problem that needs to be sorted out. The lies on the industrial scale. And what? And you had no embarrassment whatsoever about the way that you behaved at the time? Well, I’ve said I’m sorry that I didn’t see you. Were you embarrassed about the way you behaved? Well, of course, when you’re sorry, you wish you’d done something and therefore you you you feel that you could have gone, wish you’d gone further. I I I couldn’t. Looking back, well, yes, I feel that as someone who’s sorry for not seeing through the lies and sorry for not seeing Alan Bates. I’m sure other people feel that as well. We wish we’d got to the bottom of this, but unfortunately it took the Fujitsu whistleblower, the insider, Fujitsu to come forward. They came forward in 2015, years after I left office, and it was only in 2015 that the lies of the post office were exposed and you then, then you’d been more inquisitive at the time. They may well well there was a light earlier. Regrettably, there was no whistleblower. It took the whistleblower, the Fujitsu insider, to to show that the post Office were lying because the the post office lied to many, many people. When we got that Fujitsu insider, the BBC did a a the Panorama programme which exposed the lies in 2015. And here’s the thing which it hasn’t had the attention, OK, is that then it took another four years before we saw the High Court case where the the postmasters were exonerated. OK. And I and I think we are gonna have to leave it there. We’re going off there. But thank you for being so honest and opening your responses. I really do appreciate it.