A senior backbench MP has called for Sir Philip Green, the former BHS owner, to be stripped of his knighthood if he is found to have abused his position.
Margaret Hodge, former chairwoman of the Commons’ public accounts committee, has joined a growing chorus of public figures who have questioned the suitability of the tycoon’s title.
Sir John Collins, a former chairman of Dixons who headed the Whitehall honours committee which proposed Sir Philip’s knighthood, has said that he should lose his honour if he is found to have lacked integrity.
Ms Hodge’s comments also follow criticism from John Mann, the Labour MP, and Frank Field, the chairman of the work and pensions committee.
The committee has started one of two parliamentary inquiries into the collapse of BHS, which went into administration a week ago putting 11,000 jobs at risk. It also has a pension fund deficit of £571 million.
Advertisement
The collapse came about a year after the store was controversially sold for £1 to a group of little-known investors.
Ms Hodge, the Labour MP for Barking, told Sky News that Sir Philip should lose his knighthood, given for services to retail in 2006 when Tony Blair was prime minister, if “he is found to have abused his position”.
She also questioned why regulators had not intervened at an earlier stage, such as when BHS was able to pay more than £400 million in dividends under Sir Philip and when the company was later sold to Retail Acquisitions, headed by Dominic Chappell “who has been bankrupted twice and who had some very unsavoury connections”.
Her intervention comes amid a weekend of growing pressure on Sir Philip, who is yet to comment publicly. It emerged yesterday that Retail Acquisitions borrowed money from Allied Commercial Exporters, run by the family of “Black” Jack Dellal, the late property trader, at an interest rate of about 20 per cent. It was referred to by BHS management as the “Wonga loan”, The Sunday Times reported. The family has said that the loans were made at commercial rates and did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Duff & Phelps, the administrators, are seeking buyers for BHS and a number of potential parties have indicated interest in all or parts of the retailer, which has about 160 stores. Mike Ashley, the billionaire owner of Sports Direct, the high-street chain, is considering a deal that would keep all the stores open, while Allan Leighton, the former chairman of BHS, is also interested. He attempted to buy it nine years ago from Sir Philip before he stepped down as chairman, but their relationship soured.
Advertisement
Mr Leighton, who was chairman when millions of pounds of dividends were paid to shareholders, was paid about £2.6 million when he worked at BHS through Going Plural, his company, public accounts show.