UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has rejected former subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates’ calls for faster compensation for victims of the Post Office (PO) Horizon scandal.

Bates has written two letters to Starmer in a month, urging the prime minister that Horizon victims receive full financial redress by March 2025.

At a Business and Trade select committee on 5 November, MPs heard from Bates about the communication between himself and the prime minister.

He also criticised the “bureaucracy” of the government in handling compensation, adding that “behind the scenes, they’ve been shifting the goal posts… since the scheme began”.

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“We’re quite pleased the Committee is looking at [this], but speaking from my own personal case, you’re told it’s one thing of the scheme and you find out it’s something different,” he continued.

The Autumn Budget included a pledge to put aside £1.8bn for compensating people affected by the scandal, in addition to various compensation schemes already announced.

A spokesperson for Number 10 said: “We want redress as quickly as possible. What we don’t want to do is set an absolute cut-off date which would result in some claimants missing the deadline. But each postmaster eligible should receive substantial redress by the end of March.”

The spokesperson added that, as of 31 October 2024, approximately £438m had been paid to more than 3,100 claimants across the four compensation schemes.

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