Now MP rages: Sir Shif t y’s destruction of pensions was ‘evil’
After tycoon’s threat to sue him for defamation...
SIR Philip Green was yesterday accused of ‘evil’ behaviour that destroyed thousands of jobs and pensions at BHS.
Stepping up his war of words with the billionaire, Labour MP Frank Field said he plans to meet with the Serious Fraud Office this week to discuss the collapse of the chain.
The MP is already facing the threat of a writ from Sir Philip after describing him as ‘much worse’ than the notorious fraudster Robert Maxwell.
On Saturday, the tycoon warned he could withdraw plans to plug a £571million black hole in the BHS pensions scheme if Mr Field persisted with ‘false’ allegations that he and his family had ‘plundered’ the firm.
As the row intensified, it emerged the Pensions Regulator has opened a fresh investigation into Sir Philip’s Arcadia retail empire amid concerns about a growing shortfall in the scheme used for 14,000 staff at Topshop and Dorothy Perkins.
Mr Field, who led the parliamentary probe into the demise of the high street retailer and has led calls to strip Sir Philip of his knighthood, escalated the rhetoric yesterday. He described as ‘absurd’ claims from the tycoon that the Commons work and pensions select committee acted as a ‘kangaroo court’.
He told the BBC: ‘The idea that it is a kangaroo court, it is just displacement therapy for him – facing up to the evil that he has done in destroying BHS, workers’ jobs, and pension fund liabilities and a need now for him to do something about it, which is to write that big cheque.’
The tycoon told MPs in June he would ‘sort’ the giant deficit in the BHS pensions scheme and work with regulators to come up with a solution, but MPs have grown frustrated by the failure to move more swiftly.
Mr Field said: ‘This is the man that’s responsible for the destruction of 11,000 jobs, putting 22,000 pensions at risk. He said he was going to “fix it, fix it, fix it”, when he was with us – he hasn’t done so.’ He revealed plans to meet with the Serious Fraud Office and the Pensions Regulator this week to discuss the BHS debacle.
A parliamentary report published last week described Sir Philip as the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’, claiming that he and his family had withdrawn hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends from BHS while allowing a huge funding shortfall to build up in the pension fund.
The retailer collapsed in April, barely a year after Sir Philip sold the chain to three times bankrupt former racing driver Dominic Chappell. Warning Mr Field not to persist with attacks against him at the weekend, Sir Philip wrote a letter stressing that he has ‘no legal liability’ to plug the giant shortfall in the BHS pensions scheme but is ‘working hard’ to come to a solution.
He added that Mr Field’s ‘defamatory’ remarks, including ‘allegations of theft’, puts a ‘solution at risk’. Unless Sir Philip steps in the scheme will fall into the Pension Protection Fund, with many former BHS workers facing a 10 per cent cut to their retirement income.
Yesterday it emerged that a rescue plan codenamed Project Atlantic has been put forward by Sir Philip and his advisers at accountancy firm Deloitte.
Under the proposals BHS savers with pots of £18,000 or less would receive a lump sum. The remainder would be looked after in a new fund boosted by cash from parent group Arcadia. But it is understood that watchdogs are worried about the growing shortfall in the Arcadia scheme, which widened from £124.6million to £189.6million in accounts filed last August.
Last night Arcadia declined to comment on the latest allegations. But a source close to Sir Philip said the Labour MP had a ‘vendetta’ against him. The source added: ‘The Arcadia pension fund is well funded and well run. The deficit has widened in the past two years, as it has in almost all occupational schemes, but is still modest in the context of a company that makes £240million a year and has no debt at the operating level.’