00:00 That case was going on then when Paula Vennells was recommended for a CBE because she was awarded
00:07 that CBE in 2019. That's right. Who in government thought it was appropriate while a massive legal
00:15 case involving 500 people harassed, persecuted by the post office, who thought it was appropriate to
00:23 recommend her for a CBE? I have no idea. But you were post office minister afterwards. But it's a
00:29 really good question. When you say that you had the advantage of knowing that legal case,
00:32 did you not then have the perspective of saying, how on earth do we give an honour to the woman who
00:37 was in charge during those, some of those years? Yeah, I think there's two things. I mean, first of
00:41 all, what I've been wanting to do when I was, especially when I was minister, setting up the
00:45 inquiry, I wanted to make sure that we get those answers, but I wanted it to be done through the
00:50 inquiry because I want Paula Vennells to be there giving evidence. I wanted Fujitsu to be there.
00:55 And bear in mind, what I did originally was to make it non-statutory so they didn't have to come.
00:59 Have you asked who recommended Paula Vennells? I haven't done that yet. I haven't done that yet.
01:03 Well, I will be doing that. I will be doing that because it goes through Cabinet Office. It goes
01:06 through the Cabinet Office and there's an honours committee that have to approve that. And it's not
01:14 particularly, you know, there is an independent committee, but it's not particularly transparent.
01:18 But every time we talk to someone who's in charge, they say, well, there's an inquiry,
01:22 so we've done that. And, you know, it's really important that people answer questions. But this
01:26 has been going on, you started investigating in 2010. It's been going on since the 1990s.
01:31 The government are complicit in this scandal. Paula Vennells wasn't just given a CBE,
01:36 she was given a seat on the Cabinet Office Board and the chairmanship of a large NHS trust
01:41 as a reward for denying justice to the campaigning sub-postmasters, to attritionally
01:46 and aggressively litigate against them in the High Court. That was backed by the government.
01:52 The post office is 100% owned by the government.
