‘Arcadia staff shouldn’t pay price for Sir Philip’s greed’
Ed’s call as tycoon’s wife pays up £50m
ED Miliband has told MPs the 13,000 staff at Sir Philip Green’s failed high street empire should not “pay the price” for his “greed”.
Pressure is piling on Monaco-based tycoon Green to plug an estimated £350million black hole in his Arcadia group’s pension funds.
Arcadia – which owns brands including Topshop and Burton – collapsed on Monday.
The 10,000 members of its retirement schemes are likely to enter the Pension Protection Fund, which steps in when firms go bust – but they risk pension cuts of up to 25 per cent.
Shadow Business Secretary Miliband told the Commons yesterday: “Philip Green owes workers at Arcadia a moral duty.
“His family took a dividend worth £1.2billion, the largest in UK history, three times the size of the pension deficit. The workers should not pay the price of Philip Green’s greed.”
It came as Debenhams, which has changed hands various times, including a spell in private equity ownership, began a firesale after administrators said all 124 stores will close. Tory MP Robert Halfon called for legislation to “stop these robber barons who own big companies and plunder assets, and then the taxpayer is left to foot the bill and you have anxious employees losing their jobs and their pensions”. Business Secretar y Alok Sharma has written to ask the Insolvency Service to look at the conduct of Arcadia’s directors and “whether their actions caused detriment to pension schemes if there is an investigation”. Green’s wife previously pledged £ 100mil lion for Arcadia’s pension fund. A statement on her behalf yesterday confirmed two £25million instalments have been paid. It added: “The final £50million was not due to be paid until September 2021. “Lady Green is going to bring this forward to the next 7/10 days.”