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Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has announced that the scope of the compensation programme for victims of the Post Office scandal will be extended to cover earlier potential victims.

The government already has four schemes in place offering compensation to post officer operators who suffered because faulty Horizon IT software led to them being wrongly blamed for missing money. More than 900 people were prosecuted, more than 100 were jailed, but many more lost out because they were forced to repay money they were accused of losing or stealing, and/or because they lost their jobs.

A significant amount of time has also passed, and we recognise that this means that timescales are far greater, and the population of postmasters that used Capture will be more advanced in age, or a greater proportion of the population may have unfortunately died. We also recognise that the passage of time means that evidence of shortfalls and consequential losses, and evidence relating to suspensions, termination, prosecution, or convictions, will be far more difficult to find. It will therefore be difficult for claimants to corroborate their claims with contemporary evidence. Postmasters, the Post Office, or the UK government may not have enough evidence, and we may never find enough evidence to determine liability to the level that would be expected by the courts.

It is thanks to testimony of postmasters that this has been brought to light and failings have been discovered.

We must now work quickly to provide redress and justice to those who have suffered greatly after being wrongly accused.

We are considering the right form of redress for victims who have suffered.

This is a challenging exercise given the passage of time and the significant lack of records and evidence.

Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said that those whose brothers or sisters were infected with potentially deadly viruses while receiving care should be fairly compensated.

He also announced in a written ministerial statement that the government “accepts in full or accepts in principle” all of the 12 recommendations made as part of the Infected Blood Inquiry.