Green lashes out at tormentor Field: You are to blame if I can’t save BHS pensioners

SIR Philip Green has warned MP Frank Field that his constant public attacks are putting a rescue plan for BHS pensioners in jeopardy.

In a stinging letter to the veteran Labour MP this weekend, the billionaire accuses him of ‘endless self-promotion’ and ‘political grandstanding’.

The former BHS owner says he is making progress in finding a solution for workers left at risk of losing their pensions after the collapse of the retailer.

But he adds: ‘You should be in no doubt, Mr Field, that any solution relies on a voluntary decision on our side to support the BHS pension schemes. There is no legal liability to make any payment to support the schemes.’

In what appears to be a thinly veiled threat, he writes: ‘If you continue to seek to usurp the Pension Regulator’s role and hurl daily abuse at us, any failure to arrive at a pensions settlement will be solely down to you and the blame will lie at your door. The BHS pensioners can only hope that you now reign yourself in.’

Sources close to Green said he did not intend the letter to be a direct threat, but added: ‘Could you blame him if he abandoned this, if he keeps getting beaten up every day?’

Field, chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, led the recent parliamentary inquiry into the collapse of BHS, which has left 11,000 jobs at risk and 20,000 current and former workers facing cuts to their pensions because of a £571 million fund deficit.

In his letter, Green accuses Field of turning the inquiry committee into ‘little more than a kangaroo court with your constant press campaign barracking and insulting me and my family’. He adds: ‘I am not prepared to continue to allow your abuse to go unanswered.’

He then says: ‘I will not be bullied by your press campaign and political grandstanding into supporting the BHS pension schemes. If you have any genuine interest in a positive outcome for the BHS pensioners, and not just your endless self-promotion, you will now finally recognise the reality that you have no positive role to play in arriving at any solution.’

Green writes that he is working with the regulator but cannot move any quicker than the rules allow, saying it is ‘utterly disingenuous’ of Field to lead the public to think he can just write a cheque.

Green bought the BHS chain for £200million in 2000 before selling it to Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt with no retail experience, for a nominal £1.

Addressing allegations by Field that Green was responsible for ‘plundering’ BHS, he says in the letter that such claims are ‘false’ and that the allegation will not help solve the pensions problem, adding: ‘It puts a solution at risk.’

Speaking last night, Field told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I just don’t understand the man. He just needs to start paying up.’

Asked if he accepted that the pace at which Green could act was constrained by the regulatory process, Field said: ‘I think the question may be whether he’s got the money. But he does not have to do anything but pay up.’

Field and several other MPs have has also said that Green’s knighthood, given in 2006 for ‘services to retail’, should be reconsidered.

If you continue to hurl abuse at us, any failure to arrive at a pension settlement will be down to you FROM SIR PHILIP GREEN’S LETTER TO FRANK FIELD