Labour MP Calls For Urgent Arms-Length Body Review To Avoid Future Post Office Scandal

Labour MP Kevan Jones has said that a review of arms-length bodies in the UK is urgently needed in order to prevent the Post Office scandal repeating itself.

Since the wrongful convictions of Post Office sub-postmasters were brought back into public attention following the release of an ITV drama highlighting the scandal, attention has begun to turn to how to prevent similar disasters in the future.

Labour MP Kevan Jones was one of a group of parliamentarians who had long been campaigning on behalf of constituents affected by the scandal, and is a member of the independent Horizon advisory board which oversees compensation related to the scandal.

Given the Post Office's status as an arms-length body – a private company owned by the government – Jones told PoliticsHome he believed there was a fundamental issue with the way such bodies are governed. There are hundreds of other arms-length bodies, including state-owned enterprises such as Channel 4, Network Rail, and Ordnance Survey.

"It's funded by you and I and other taxpayers, but it's an arm's length organisation, and I think there are big questions about these organisations which we own that are running this way... there is an urgent need for review," Jones said.

"We’re conning ourselves into thinking that these organisations are separate from Government and are somehow independent. They're not, so therefore we need accountability.

"You need a system whereby they're accountable to Parliament but also whereby the government are able to intervene more directly on occasions. It’s no good just hiding behind the fact that they are arm's length."

The Post Office spent nearly £100m of taxpayer's money, in Jones' words, "to defend the indefensible", which he argued went almost