ED Davey should give an unreserved apology to victims of the Horizon Post Office scandal and be held to account for his actions, the Alba Party have insisted.
LibDem leader Davey was postal services minister in the Tory/LibDem coalition government between 2010 and 2012.
Alex Salmond's party insist there must be an investigation into claims concerns raised with him about the faulty accounting software were dismissed.
The SNP have also said the UK Government “must move swiftly” to compensate those affected by the scandal and exonerate people for crimes they’ve been wrongly accused of.
Marion Fellows, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Postal Affairs, accused the Tory government of taking too long to deliver justice to sub-postmasters who were falsely blamed for accounting errors which led to bankruptcies, jail sentences and suicides.
Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office relentlessly pursued operators of sub-post offices across the UK for alleged theft, fraud and false accounting based on information from its Horizon IT system installed in the late 1990s.
That was despite knowing that from at least 2010 onwards that there were faults in the centralised accounting software.
In a motion that has been lodged at the Scottish Parliament, Alba's Holyrood leader Ash Regan said she wants to see Davey hauled before the independent inquiry into the Horizon scandal to explain his actions when he was the accountable minister.
Regan’s motion claims Davey and other ministers were repeatedly warned about the accounting problems and issues with the Horizon software.
She added: “The Post Office Horizon scandal is a grievous miscarriage of justice that has had devastating consequences on postmasters across the UK and in Scotland.
“To date not a single person has been held to account. Reports that decisions by UK Government ministers exacerbated the scandal and that concerns raised directly with Sir Ed Davey were dismissed must be investigated.
“Ministers in the Tory LibDem coalition government must be held to account for their failings.”
Fellows insisted there must be no more delays in delivering justice to sub-postmasters who are “a bedrock of our communities”.
She said: “After decades of failures and cover-ups by successive Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory ministers at Westminster, hundreds of people who worked hard for local communities have been made to fight far too long for justice - there must be no more delays from this UK Government.
“We need to see urgency from the UK Government to deliver compensation and full exoneration to all victims of this stunning miscarriage of justice - without affecting current Postmaster remuneration, and a guarantee that those responsible will be held to account.
“Many sub-Postmasters expect they’ll never see the compensation they deserve - it’s up to the Tories and this UK government to ensure they do.
"Sub-postmasters provide crucial services and are a bedrock of our communities - their role should never be understated or undermined."
About 3500 branch owner-operators were wrongly accused of taking money from their businesses, with more than 700 prosecuted by the Post Office despite protesting their innocence and raising issues with the software in their defence.
A petition calling for former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to lose her CBE over the scandal has attracted more than one million signatures.
Vennells oversaw the organisation while it routinely denied there were problems with its IT system.
The miscarriage of justice has come into sharp focus recently in the TV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Since it aired, the Metropolitan Police have confirmed for the first time the Post Office is under criminal investigation over “potential fraud offences”.
In 2019, Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance won a High Court case, led by former sub-postmaster Alan Bates.
That case found "bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system caused discrepancies in postmasters' branch accounts".
