Post Office management were ‘thugs in suits’, former Lib Dem leader Vince Cable tells inquiry – as it happened

Cable agrees with characterisation of leadership at state-owned body when he was business secretary from 2010-15 in testimony to hearings on Horizon IT scandal

Greg Clark, the business secretary from 2016 to 2019, has begun to give his testimony at the public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Clark was in place as the Post Office started to come under signifcant pressure as Sir Alan Bates and 554 other subpostmasters began - and won -- a high court action against the organisation.

Given time I probably would have done, and should have done, [something]," he said. We were a day or so before the end of parliament I was beginning to smell a rat. Had parliament continued, or had I returned to office, I'd have got all these people around the table."

And for the first time Mr Bates, I'd not heard of him until this point," said Cable. I'd have had them round a table and said what the hell is going on here?'. But I didn't have the time to do that."