The broadcast of the television series on the Post Office scandal “made it urgent” to speed up the payment of compensation to subpostmasters, declared Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.
The government needs to “look like it is doing the right thing”, said Badenoch, who was then business secretary.
At the inquiry into the scandal, she admitted it was “extremely disappointing” that it took the ITV drama to make the problem worse.
But she said her dispute with the Treasury over the time it took to award compensation last August was not simply down to her “posture”.
Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of subpostmasters and postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted after a faulty computer system called Horizon made it appear that money was missing from their branches.
Monday marked the start of the final week of testimony in the inquiry into the scandal, more than two and a half years after public hearings began.
Badenoch said ITV's four-part television series, broadcast in January, had raised awareness of the issue, transforming compensation “from a perception of value for money to a question of public perception”.
She insisted the previous government was working on the issue, but admitted it was “too slow”.
The inquiry heard how Badenoch told the Treasury she wanted to make “lump sum offers” of £100,000 to all sub-postmasters with a claim, with the inquiry lawyer Jason Beer KC outlining her mention of “ministerial direction” as a threat.
According to him, this could be considered “soft power” or “posturing”.
But Badenoch denied the claim, saying: “It indicated the direction I wanted the ministry to take to make it very clear.”
She said she believed speed should trump accuracy and admitted it might not have represented value for money from a taxpayer perspective.
Mr Bates v Post brought the investigation back into the spotlight after it was broadcast.
Earlier on Monday, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said ownership of the Post Office should be transferred to its thousands of subpostmasters across the UK.
“Nothing should be ruled out for the future of the Post,” he said, adding that the future of the organization will be defined in the first half of next year.
He said the Post Office's corporate culture was “at the root of this scandal” and that some subpostmasters had “lost all faith in the justice system” because of it.
