Ministers line up WH Smith’s Staunton to chair embattled Post Office

Ministers are lining up the outgoing chairman of WH Smith to chair the state-owned Post Office as it navigates the financial fallout of Britain’s biggest miscarriage of justice.

Sky News has learnt that Henry Staunton, a former ITV finance chief, has been identified as the leading candidate to succeed Tim Parker later this year.

If it proceeds, Mr Staunton’s appointment could be announced within weeks, although it may not take place until after the election of the new Conservative Party leader.

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Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary who has responsibility for oversight of the Post Office, is expected to move to the Treasury if Liz Truss becomes prime minister next month.

It was unclear on Monday whether the Post Office chair would be signed off by Mr Kwarteng or a successor, or whether other candidates remained in contention for the role.

Mr Parker has chaired the Post Office since 2015, a period of tumult which has included the launch of the ongoing public inquiry into the IT scandal which resulted in hundreds of sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted.

Much of Mr Parker’s tenure has been beset by controversy, with the eventual compensation bill for the IT cover-up expected to reach north of £1bn.

The public inquiry has heard harrowing tales of the impact of what has been described as Britain’s biggest miscarriage of justice on the victims and their families.

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Mr Staunton’s pedigree as chairman of one of the UK’s largest retail networks makes him a logical choice for the Post Office role.

He is also chairman of Capital & Counties, the owner of Covent Garden, but will step down from that role once its merger with Shaftesbury is completed.

His other previous roles include the chairmanship of Phoenix Group, the life insurer, and a stint as finance director of Granada.

Mr Staunton is due to leave WH Smith at the end of November.

As chair of the Post Office, he would take the helm of an organisation grappling with both the Horizon IT scandal and the radical shifts taking place in the delivery of the retail and banking services its network provides.

The government-owned company’s former chiefs have come under intense pressure over their handling of the affair, with Paula Vennells, the former chief executive, facing demands to hand back her CBE.

Her replacement, Nick Read, has been in the job for just over three years.

The organisation, which is managed by the government’s holding company, UKGI, is Britain’s biggest retail network.

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A new chair of the Post Office would add it to a long list of state-owned commercial organisations and economic regulators to have appointed new leadership in recent months.

At Channel 4, which remains likely to be privatised, Sir Ian Cheshire has joined as chairman, while its regulator, Ofcom, has a new chair in Lord Grade.

The Competition and Markets Authority, Ofwat, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Court of the Bank of England also have new chairs.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said an announcement about Mr Parker’s successor would be made in due course.