The Post Office Scandal: Fujitsu’s Recorded Delivery
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2024
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, the two companies at the centre of the Post Office tech scandal were questioned by MPs.
Fujitsu’s Paul Patterson and the head of the Post Office, Nick Read were grilled by the Business and Trade Select Committee. The UK boss of the tech company said Fujitsu had a “moral obligation” to contribute to compensation.
Adam speaks to the BBC’s Business Editor Simon Jack, Rebecca Thomson who first broke the story for Computer Weekly in 2009, and journalist Nick Wallis. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Josh Jenkins, Joe Wilkinson and Sam McLaren. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The senior news editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, one of those days where it hasn't quite gone to plan. So we originally were not going to cover |
| 0:06.1 | the latest votes on the government's Rwanda legislation because their votes on amendments |
| 0:11.6 | and the parliamentary arithmetic meant that the government was always going to win |
| 0:16.6 | no matter how many Conservative MPs rebelled and voted for amendments put forward by people like Bill Cash who want to make the legislation tougher because they think it isn't tough enough. |
| 0:27.0 | And we thought we'll just wait till Wednesday when it's the so-called third reading because actually that's the point at which a |
| 0:33.4 | government rebellion really really matters because it could mean that the |
| 0:37.1 | legislation doesn't get through which would be a pretty major deal for the government. |
| 0:40.7 | Anyway we've just had the votes on Tuesday night on some of the |
| 0:44.9 | amendments and there was quite a large number of conservatives voted for one of |
| 0:49.4 | them in particular around about 6817 so that suggests that actually maybe the |
| 0:54.8 | disquiet amongst the Conservative Party but the the lack of strength of this bill |
| 0:58.8 | is actually bigger than we we thought and also two of the people that voted for that amendment |
| 1:06.3 | and rebelled against the government are vice chairs of the Conservative Party Lee |
| 1:11.2 | Anderson and Brendan Clark Smith, and they have now offered their resignation to the |
| 1:16.0 | Prime Minister because they rebelled against the government whip. |
| 1:20.3 | So that's slightly more dramatic than we were expecting. |
| 1:24.0 | However, does this mean the rebels have kind of like shot their shot? |
| 1:30.0 | And this is the high point of the drama as far as that is concerned. |
| 1:34.0 | And actually when it comes to third reading tomorrow, |
| 1:36.0 | not all of those 6870 rebels vote against the government. |
| 1:40.0 | And actually the people who are disgruntled use this as leverage to get more assurances and other things that be before third reading or as the as the bill goes through the lords where it will also face a bit of a battle |
| 1:55.0 | or can the government do other things like it's done today like saying |
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