UK members of parliament are demanding answers after Fujitsu was confirmed in July 2026 as a supplier on four government buying lists worth more than £54 billion combined. Committee chair Liam Byrne MP wrote to minister John Reynolds asking how this fits with Fujitsu's own promise to pause bidding for government work. He wants answers by August 12. Computer Weekly

The background is the Post Office scandal. Fujitsu built software called Horizon that ran the accounting systems in Post Office branches. The software showed money was missing from branch accounts. Subpostmasters — the people who ran those branches — were blamed for the shortfalls. Many were prosecuted, convicted, and some were sent to prison, for losses that were actually caused by the software. A public inquiry into what happened began in early 2022 and its final report is expected early next year.

After public anger intensified in January 2024, partly driven by an ITV drama about the scandal, Fujitsu announced it would pause bidding for new public sector work. But the company kept winning hundreds of millions of pounds in government deals during the pause. The reason is that Fujitsu's ban only covered trying to win brand-new government customers. It could keep selling to government departments it already worked with.

Byrne's letter asks the government to explain this gap. He wants to know whether being on these buying lists lets Fujitsu reach government bodies it does not already work with. He asks how this fits with Fujitsu's pause. He asks what conversations the government has had with Fujitsu about it. And he asks whether Fujitsu has promised not to use these lists to win work from new government customers while its pause is still in effect.

The buying lists in question are large. On July 24, Fujitsu was named on G Cloud 15, worth £16.8 billion, which provides cloud services — that is, software and data storage delivered over the internet rather than from a company's own computers. Fujitsu was also named on the £19.2 billion Technology Services 4 list, covering IT consulting, technical support, and infrastructure. A Transport Technology list rounds out the four.

This is not the first time parliament has looked at the question. In a May 2025 evidence session, a questioner asked whether Fujitsu had won any new government contracts over the preceding 12 months. UK Parliament HMRC, the UK tax authority, which uses Fujitsu as a provider, defended its continued relationship with the company in May 2025. UK Parliament As of a March 2026 debate in the House of Commons, the government had not yet asked Fujitsu to contribute money toward compensation for the wrongfully convicted subpostmasters. Hansard

Separately, the government is funding a programme to move the running of Horizon away from Fujitsu, according to a February 2026 response to a consultation on the Post Office's future. GOV.UK The Post Office's Future Technology Portfolio programme, described in a July 2026 business case, is part of its response to the inquiry and is meant to show real change. GOV.UK

To understand the buying lists, think of them like an approved vendor list at a large company. Once a supplier is on the list, any department can buy from them without having to run a fresh competition each time. Being on the list does not mean Fujitsu automatically gets work. It means Fujitsu is pre-approved to compete for work from any government body that uses that list. Whether Fujitsu will actually do so, and whether that would break the promise it made, is exactly what Byrne wants the government to clarify.

The situation leaves one supplier deeply embedded across cloud services, infrastructure, transport, and consulting work worth tens of billions of pounds, while still being investigated for one of the most damaging IT failures in UK public sector history.

The timing here matters. The inquiry's final report is expected early next year, but the buying lists are live right now. Any government department buying services through these lists between now and the report's publication will be doing so knowing the full context of the scandal. The choices each department makes in the coming months will tell their own story.