Sir Wyn Williams’ statement following response to request for waiver of LPP

On 8 November 2021 I published a statement in which I asked BEIS, UKGI, POL and FUJITSU to waive privilege in respect of legally privileged material relevant to the Terms of Reference as carried into effect by the Provisional List of Issues.

I asked those institutions to provide an answer to my request by 4:00pm on Monday 15th November 2021.

I am very pleased to report that all four institutions responded to my request within the timescale I specified. Their responses are published together with this Statement.

The responses of BEIS, UKGI and FUJITSU speak for themselves. The response of POL, on any view, goes a very long way towards meeting the request I made of them. It is clear to me that in respect of many of the most crucial lines of investigation for the Inquiry POL has waived legal professional privilege.

In these circumstances, I have decided that there is no need to hold a discrete hearing to deal with issues relating to legal professional privilege prior to the commencement of the public hearings next year. There is now a great deal of work to be done in organising and obtaining disclosure of relevant documents (including documents which until now have been the subject of legal professional privilege). It is also imperative that the Inquiry legal team accelerates the process of obtaining witness statements from relevant witnesses. The time which might have been spent on issues relating to legal professional privilege can now be spent on this work.

I make it clear, however, that if, in the future, it becomes necessary to re-visit the issue of legal professional privilege on account of emerging evidence or for any other proper reason I will do so at an appropriate time and, if necessary, invite further submissions both in writing and orally.

Read the responses:

BEIS (PDF, 1 page, 295kb)

Fujitsu Services (PDF, 1 page, 140kb)

Post Office Limited (PDF, 3 pages, 174kb)

UKGI (PDF, 2 pages, 96kb)