The former Post Office chairman was allegedly told to stall compensation payments to subpostmasters because of the upcoming general election.

Henry Staunton had only been in the job since December 2022 before getting sacked last month.

The former chairman of WH Smith received a call from Sky News informing him of his sacking on January 27, before anyone from Kemi Badenoch's office had spoken to him.

The Business Secretary - whom Staunton had never met before - phoned him shortly afterwards and informed him that he was being removed from his role.

Henry Staunton had been in the role since December 2022

He said she referred to the Horizon scandal, which saw more than 900 subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 based on flaws in the Horizon system.

Staunton claims that Badenoch did not apologise to him for the manner that he found out his fate and instead said: "Well, someone's got to take the rap for this."

The former chairman went on to allege that he was instructed by a senior civil servant to stall on compensation payments to the Horizon victims so that the government could "limp into the election" later this year with the lowest possible financial liability.

Badenoch's department have denied the claims and referred to the conversation as "simply incorrect".