Readers Letters: Post Office compensation to sub-postmasters is not enough

The Post Office scandal has shaken our nation to the core. The losses incurred by Postmasters will range from a few pounds here and there to tens of thousands.

The Post Office Horizon scandal has dominated the news agenda this week (Picture: James Manning/PA Wire)

Nearly all sub-postmasters made good on all sorts of discrepancies with their own money. The only way to get everyone effected is for every Horizon transaction correction that has ever come through and been settled to cash or cheque between 1999 and 2015 to be paid back to the relevant sub-postmaster.

It seems impossible for the Post Office to prove what is a glitch and what is not while they used the faulty Horizon system. Also sub-postmasters were not paid for holidays, not paid for all of the hours they worked, nor given any pensions. This all has to be included in any compensation given to sub-postmasters.

The Post Office taking sub-postmasters’ money, not paying them properly, not giving them pensions is evil enough but the Post Office’s actions through the courts destroyed people’s lives, what little that has been offered in recompense is not nearly enough.​

Cllr Alastair Redman, Kintyre and the Islands ward, former sub-postmaster,Isle Of Islay, Argyll

Horizon’s IT failure

Having watched the first episode of Mr Bates Vs the Post Office, based on the Post Office scandal, I wonder if, at any point, the rate of sub-postmaster prosecutions for fraud prior to and after Horizon was introduced were compared!

I suspect that the rate post-Horizon was significantly higher but did not alert the Post Office to possible problems. Probably congratulated itself on the “success” of its new system!

Richard Perry, Burntisland

Unsafe verdicts

As the cases against the sub-postmasters and postmistresses are now found to be based on lies, the courts’ verdicts and judges’ sentences were clearly unsafe. So could the Supreme Court in London and the Court of Session Inner House in Edinburgh not convene to rule accordingly?

That would avoid any perceived interference by politicians in the judiciary, and would restore some sense of British justice among the victims and the population.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Missed chance

I can’t believe the SNP, who just love putting one over on Westminster, didn’t act as a rallying point for Scottish sub-postmasters.

What an opportunity they missed to showcase our wonderful, separate legal system, our caring society and SNP government and produce another argument for independence. Or maybe none of that’s true?

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven

Who knew?

In the House of Commons, SNP MP Stephen Flynn, arguably with justification, criticises the Tory government’s record for its role in the Post Office scandal. That said, the severity of this matter has been known to the SNP administration in Holyrood for ten years, yet scant governmental action was taken north of the Border. And let’s remember that Humza Yousaf was Justice Secretary for a number of years during this period and surely must accept some personal responsibility.

Flynn complains Post Office staff "never stood a chance” against the Westminster establishment – yet, I suggest, nor did they against the SNP Holyrood hierarchy. Flynn, in apparent desperation to regurgitate his usual anti-Westminster narrative, fails to acknowledge his own party’s culpability in this tragic affair. Are we surprised?

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Police ills

The Scotsman’s report on the troubles facing Police Scotland (11 January) should remind all those in public life that the money they spend is not theirs. We hard-pressed taxpayers are the ones who foot the bills.

I think that the Chief Constable on the current salary could have afforded to hire a private car and driver to take her and her Durham Police colleague back to England during Storm Babet.

We taxpayers have paid out for substantial legal fees on behalf of the Scottish Government in the Alex Salmond case and now on Nicola Sturgeon’s attempt to withhold information from the Covid enquiry. In the same breath we find young people waiting up to three years for mental health appointments. Where will it end?

Fiona Garwood, Edinburgh

Dear doctor

It appears that Dr Richard Dixon has arrived at the reluctant conclusion that not all the nations of the world will be participating in the green crusade that he champions in his weekly column (“Temperature threshold set to be breached”, 10 January).

He also reminds us of an alarming catalogue of record breaking rainfall and temperature events in recent years.

His views do, however, raise some pertinent questions.

We are informed that 2023 was "the warmest year ever recorded” but how can such an “unprecedented” pronouncement carry true authority when records only go back two generations to around 1860?

Would he perhaps concur that the sparsely located weather stations of that time have not only grown vastly in number but that in spite of protestations to the contrary, many temperature readings are distorted to higher levels because of the heat-absorbing characteristics of concrete, Tarmac and glass in rapidly expanding urban environments which create what is known as the urban heat island effect?

Is it not also reasonable to point out that the vast non-porous surfaces of such places is a significant contributory factor to rapid rainwater runoff and consequent flooding?

It is predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year ever, but how much of this can be attributed to the powerful cyclical phenomenon of El Nino which influences global weather patterns?

Why are numerous proven short term and rapid climatic fluctuations and the centuries-long Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, that may well have exceeded current temperatures, hardly ever mentioned?

Dr Dixon refers to the continuing drought in Eastern Africa as a further manifestation of man-made global warming.

He must be aware of the great Mayan civilisation in Central America that experienced periods of heavy rain as well as warming and ultimately a series of devastating droughts that are believed to have been a major factor in their demise 2,000 years ago when CO2 levels were just 260 parts per million (419 today).

Should we not be paying more heed to the voices of climate history to guide our thinking rather than the deceptive siren songs of questionable climate science that will scarcely move the mercury of globaltemperature?

Neil J Bryce, Kelso, Scottish Borders

Go West

The Scotsman’s leader article regarding a new title for “West Town”, the proposed development adjacent to Edinburgh Airport, got me thinking that the Street Naming Department could have a field day (11 January).

We could have: Departure Gait, Flight Path, Cross Wynd, Run Way and The Carousel. The local pub/ restaurant could be “The Check Inn”. The possibilities are endless.

J Lindsay Walls, Edinburgh

Having a Laff

The Laffer Curve in economics demonstrates how reducing income tax actually increases government spending power in the long term because it promotes growth. It’s likely that neither Mary Thomas nor Frances Scott are aware of this curve (Letters, 10 January).

Their defence of SNP/Green failure rests almost entirely on celebrating the Scottish Government’s unsustainable public sector pay awards and social welfare expenditure.

Both correspondents ignore the fact that high taxes levied by our separatist administration have handicapped and disincentivised enterprise and investment. It’s no coincidence that the rate of businesses going to the wall here is twice that experienced south of the Border.

Frances Scott tells us to “Imagine the possibilities if we didn’t depend on Westminster for our pocket money… imagine a world in which a Scottish tax take flowed directly to the people of Scotland instead of the UK Treasury.”

And just imagine if we had to borrow money and service a national debt instead. Also, imagine Scotland minus its small number of higher earners (whose taxes account for nearly two-thirds of revenue) when they relocate elsewhere, taking their wealth and skills with them.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Tact needed

The SNP push for new legislation to prevent “conversion therapy” for children struggling with gender difficulties is a red light repeat of the late and unlamented Gender Reform Bill. Threats of seven years in jail for a parent trying to prevent a child taking extreme measures, including irretrievable surgery?

Of course, the whole matter must be handled with delicacy and tact. But Big Brother legislation is the last thing needed. Would it not be better to act after thinking things through? And not again be fooled by perhaps well-meaning and pushy extremists into rushing in and not helping the situation in any way and making this country look very foolish indeed for a second time?

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

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