The award was given to Paula Vennells, who was CEO of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, overseeing the organisation during the Horizon accounting scandal which saw the wrongful prosecution of 550 post office branch managers who were falsely accused of accounting fraud when the software system developed by Fujitsu was to blame. The faulty software continued to be used until 2014, and was rolled out to 11,500 post offices.

For years, the Post Office and the government refused to accept that there was anything wrong with the accounting software, resulting in a number of branch managers being jailed when they were innocent of any wrongdoing.

There is a growing clamour for Vennells to give back her CBE, with support from MPs and a petition to Chris Wormald, chair of the forfeiture committee at the Cabinet Office, has been launched to strip Vennells of her award due to ‘her role in the wrongful prosecution of over 550 Post Office staff as part of the Horizon computer scandal’. The petition already has over 409,000 signatures.

Business minister Kevin Hollinrake told ITV: ‘Paula Vennells got a CBE for service to the Post Office. I think that matter needs to be looked at. If was Paula Vennells I would seriously consider handling that back voluntarily at this point in time.’

The issue has hit the headlines after the ITV series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, currently being broadcast.