The UK government will seek to use new legislation to overturn the wrongful convictions of hundreds of Post Office managers, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said.
Mr Sunak was speaking in the wake of renewed outrage over the scandal, which saw hundreds of self-employed sub-postmasters at branches of the state-owned Post Office convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting between 1999 and 2015, because faulty software wrongly showed thousands of pounds missing from branch accounts.
A TV dramatisation of the scandal, one of the biggest miscarriages of British justice, has heaped pressure on the government to act more swiftly to deliver justice, after some sub-postmasters were jailed and hundreds of others saw their livelihoods destroyed.
While 93 convictions have been overturned, hundreds of others are yet to be quashed.
"We will introduce new primary legislation to make sure that those convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal are swiftly exonerated and compensated," Mr Sunak told parliament.
"This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation's history. People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own."
An ongoing public inquiry is expected to conclude later this year, while London's Metropolitan Police is conducting a separate investigation.
The government is taking a significant step in legal terms by helping get the convictions quashed, as it means parliament directly interfering with the judicial process.
The normal process for anyone to have their conviction overturned in Britain is for the convicted party to lodge an appeal, usually with the help of lawyers.
Public anger over the scandal has re-erupted since ITV's "Mr Bates vs The Post Office" was broadcast earlier this month, with 9.2 million viewers tuning in, the broadcaster said.
Yesterday, former Post Office boss Paula Vennells, who oversaw many of the prosecutions of sub-postmasters, handed back a national honour after more than 1 million people signed a petition demanding she be stripped of it.
Victims and campaigners welcomed her decision to hand back the honour, which came after 1.2 million people have signed a petition calling for her to be stripped of the CBE.
Will Mellor, who starred in the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and portrayed one of the victims, said the returning of Ms Vennells' CBE was the "first step".
"People are angered by it and they want something to be done, and you've seen what's happened now with the petition, and it just shows us how strong we are when we come together," he told the PA news agency.
While questions have been raised about the role of Japan's Fujitsu, the maker of the defective Horizon software, politicians and former Post Office executives are also facing scrutiny.
Business and Trade Committee next week
Since 2012, the company has been awarded almost 200 contracts worth billions, with growing questions about why the Government has not severed ties with the firm in the wake of the scandal.
Bosses at Fujitsu have been called to answer questions from MPs on the Business and Trade Committee next week.
A Fujitsu spokesman said: "The current Post Office Horizon IT statutory inquiry is examining complex events stretching back over 20 years to understand who knew what, when, and what they did with that knowledge.
"The inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters' lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role in their suffering.
"Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it. Out of respect for the inquiry process, it would be inappropriate for Fujitsu to comment further at this time."
