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Fujitsu\u2019s European boss has told MPs the company is \u201cnot a parasite\u201d, after being criticised for continuing to make hundreds of millions of pounds from UK government contracts while refusing to give a compensation figure for victims of the Post Office<\/a> Horizon IT scandal.<\/p>\n Two years ago Paul Patterson said Fujitsu had a \u201cmoral obligation\u201d<\/a> to pay financial redress to the victims of Horizon \u2013 admitting it had known the accounting IT system was faulty since the 1990s \u2013 with the government estimating the final cost to taxpayers of payouts to be \u00a31.8bn.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Patterson was taken to task by the Commons business and trade committee for Fujitsu\u2019s continued refusal to reveal a compensation figure or make a provision for it in the publicly listed Japanese company\u2019s financial accounts.<\/p>\n Liam Byrne, the Labour MP and the chair of the committee, accused Fujitsu of \u201cbehaving like a parasite on the British state\u201d for continuing to make millions from government IT contracts while refusing to commit to a Horizon financial redress figure.<\/p>\n The scandal, in which more than 1,000 people were wrongly legally pursued over discrepancies in their post office branch accounts linked to faulty software developed by Fujitsu, has been labelled the worst miscarriage of justice in UK history<\/a>.<\/p>\n Patterson told the select committee on Tuesday that Fujitsu UK has contracts with the government, including to keep running the ageing Horizon system for the Post Office<\/a>, worth about \u00a3500m if they are not terminated early.<\/p>\n In January 2023, Fujitsu voluntarily informed the Cabinet Office that it would not bid for new UK public contracts pending the publication of the final report of the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal, which is expected later this year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not a parasite, chair,\u201d Patterson said to Byrne. \u201cWe have not bid for new government business. The government has the option of whether it wants to extend those contracts or not.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you wish us to walk away from those contracts, we will walk away. I think that [would] be detrimental to society and to the UK government. The government and the Post Office asked us to extend the Post Office contract. We don\u2019t want to do that. We are doing it because the government has asked us to do that. We are not parasitic at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Patterson said he stood by his previous comments that Fujitsu has a \u201cmoral obligation\u201d to offer a level of financial redress for its role in the scandal. Its involvement included providing data used by the Post Office in prosecutions of branch owner-operators<\/a> and the fact its employees could remotely access and change Horizon data.<\/p>\n He said the company would work out the level of financial redress due to victims when the inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams publishes the final part of a series of reports.<\/p>\n To date, Williams has only published the first volume of findings from his two-year inquiry, last July, which revealed that the scandal may have led to more than 13 suicides.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhen we last spoke I agreed with you on the moral contribution topic,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cI have maintained that position over the last two years since I saw you.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be informed by Sir Wyn\u2019s report. We want to see that report. The quantum we will decide when we get to the final report. We were involved from the very start, [Horizon] did have bugs and errors in systems and [we] did help the Post Office in the prosecutions of the subpostmasters.\u201d<\/p>\n