MPs slam decision to give alerts contract to Post Office scandal firm

Backlash over emergency alerts system continues as MPs blast ‘strange’ decision to award contract to Japanese IT giant behind the Post Office Horizon scandal

• The controversial emergency alerts system will be tested on phones on Sunday
• Fujitsu won the £5.7mn contract, after playing a ‘pivotal role’ in Horizon scandal

MPs and peers have condemned the decision to award a controversial emergency alerts contract to the firm behind the Post Office accounting scandal.

Senior Conservatives said it was ‘strange and disappointing’ the £5.7million deal went to Japanese IT giant Fujitsu – amid concerns over hacking and its ability to run such a scheme.

Over 15 years, thousands of sub-postmasters were accused of stealing despite financial irregularities caused by a glitch in Post Office’s Horizon accounting computer system.

Several took their own lives during the long-running scandal.

The emergency alert will sound at 3pm for up to ten seconds in the trial on Sunday 23 April

After a 20-year campaign, backed by the Daily Mail, victims received payouts.

A public inquiry is examining who was responsible for the miscarriage of justice, which has resulted in the Post Office paying more than £30million in compensation.

Fujitsu has never apologised for its role in the debacle.

It came as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a revolt from his own MPs about whether or not to switch off the alert this weekend following a backlash from charities.

READ MORE: How to switch OFF the emergency phone siren the Government is set to test in just a few weeks to warn the public of extreme weather and terrorist attacks

 

Conservative peer Lord Arbuthnot, who led the calls for an inquiry into Horizon, described the decision to award Fujitsu the alerts contract as ‘strange and disappointing’.

He said: ‘The Government’s financial exposure to problems caused by Fujitsu’s Horizon system is eye-wateringly huge. And Fujitsu knew that Horizon was causing these problems.

‘Yet Fujitsu has kept completely silent about the chaos, cost and human misery its Horizon system has caused.

‘Why on Earth would the Government open itself to a re-run of this disaster? I don’t understand it.’

The UK-wide test of the official emergency alarm system will see smartphones and tablets issue a siren-like sound and vibrate for ten seconds at 3pm on Sunday.

It will even affect devices switched to silent mode.

But motoring groups warned drivers could be distracted or risk breaking the law if dismissing the alert while behind the wheel.

Women’s charities fear the test could tip off abusers about hidden ‘lifeline’ devices used by victims.

Domestic violence charity Refuge is so concerned about the potential impact that it has put together a step-by-step guide to disable the alert.

Mr Sunak today said the system would only be used in emergencies, such as flooding, when rolled out.

He urged as many people as possible to keep their phones switched on for this weekend’s test.

His spokesman said: ‘We would encourage people not to switch it off… obviously people are free to make the right decision for them, we are not prescriptive.

‘But we do think this is the system to alert people to significant danger so of course we would encourage people to opt in.’

Labour has been campaigning for a warning system such as this for more than decade. Pictured: Large fire at a recycling centre in Dorset in 2021

But Conservative former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘Switch off the unnecessary and intrusive alert.’

A poll of Mail+ readers reveals 65 per cent of respondents believe the Government should not be sending these alerts.

Conservative MP Lucy Allan, who described the Horizon scandal as ‘appalling’, said it was ‘wholly inappropriate’ that Fujitsu be awarded the contract.

She said: ‘I want to know why this was thought in any way appropriate. Fujitsu played a pivotal role in the Post Office Horizon scandal.

‘Senior Fujitsu UK executives, in post at the material time, such as Michael Keegan, have yet to be held to account for this grotesque injustice.

‘Sub postmasters were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. They lost their livelihoods; some lost their lives. No one from Fujitsu has apologised.’

She said she would be asking ministers what role Mr Keegan, who is now the Crown Representative at the Cabinet Office – the Government department rolling out the alerts system – had in the decision to award the contract to Fujitsu.

Another Tory MP, who has campaigned for justice for postal staff, said: ‘Given Fujitsu were authors of the software that led to so many unlawful convictions and in essence software which did not fully work properly, it is surprising that the Government – in its stance to support those post masters – is awarding such high-value contracts to Fujitsu.’

Fujitsu had a ‘pivotal role’ in the Post Office Horizon scandal, in which a number of sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft, false accounting and fraud

The company has been paid £5million to run the alert service, on top of a further £665,000 to develop it.

A High Court judge previously said he had ‘very grave concerns about the veracity of evidence’ given by the firm’s employees when current and former sub-postmasters took the Post Office to court in 2019.

Fujitsu was last year granted a £48million contract to maintain the Police National Computer database, despite peers claiming such a decision was ‘appalling’ and that the Japanese firm’s involvement was ‘morally wrong’.

Fujitsu declined to comment.

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