Holyrood may have to be recalled in summer to pass Post Office Horizon law

First Minister Humza Yousaf said the timetabling down south will affect the process in Scotland

Humza Yousaf

The Scottish Parliament may have to be recalled during its summer recess in order to pass legislation to overturn the convictions of subpostmasters affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal, Humza Yousaf has said.

It came as the First Minister raised concerns that mirroring the legislation put forward by the UK Government for England and Wales could exonerate people who are genuinely guilty of crimes that would leave the public “horrified”.

He said the Scottish Government is “working closely” with ministers down south as it seeks to bring forward Scotland-specific legislation.

The UK Government introduced legislation to quash the convictions of subpostmasters as a result of faults with the Post Office IT system, but this will cover only England and Wales.

Mr Yousaf previously said he was “greatly disappointed” by this. He argues it would be better for the legislation to cover the whole of the UK.

However, ministers in Westminster point out Scotland has a separate legal system and prosecutions were carried out differently north of the border.

Mr Yousaf said the Scottish Government will “have to wait to see the final detail of the UK Bill” before finalising its own legislation.

Speaking to Holyrood’s convener’s group, he said: "The trouble with the timetabling of all of this is that the UK Bill might well not conclude until the end of July. Of course, this parliament would be in recess at that point, and therefore we may have to consider – it would be up to the parliament to consider recall. The Government would be happy to be involved in any recall, but it may be that we have to consider that Bill in the course of the parliamentary recess.”

Mr Yousaf said UK-wide legislation “would be better”, but the Westminster Government had made clear this would not happen.

He said: “We are working closely with the UK Government to understand what will be in the Bill, and I do have to say I have some initial concerns around the UK Bill.”

He added: “If we were to almost exactly mirror the UK Bill – of course, we couldn’t quite do that because of the differences between Scots laws and law in England and Wales – but if we were to almost mirror the broad scope, we would be in danger of overturning the convictions of people who I think, if these cases were made public… I think the public would be pretty horrified at that.

"We have to make sure we’re striking the absolute right balance between ensuring there is timely, expedited access in fact to the UK compensation scheme, because everybody in this parliament recognises subpostmasters, subpostmistresses have waited too long, but at the same time we want to make sure that people who have genuinely committed a crime, their conviction is sound, do not then have access to £600,000 of compensation.”

Under the legislation in England and Wales, those with overturned convictions will be offered £600,000 each in compensation.