Field raises fear of BHS pension case whitewash
FRANK Field has called for full details of The Pensions Regulator’s probe into the failure of retailer BHS to be released as part of its report on its pension settlement with former owner Sir Philip Green.
Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee of MPs during the scandal, raised fears that details of advice given by accountants and lawyers to regulators might not be released and that anyone criticised in the report might get a chance to have it watered down.
The case report into regulator Lesley Titcomb’s agreement with Green and his £363million payment into the BHS pension fund is due out in weeks, but a draft version has been circulated among ‘stakeholders’ – understood to include Green and Dominic Chappell, who bought the chain from the Topshop billionaire in 2015 for £1. The parties have been invited to comment on the report before its publication.
But Field raised concerns that the draft report, understood to be 31 pages long, had been circulated before its publication. ‘What is so worrying is this Maxwellisation of things where everybody gets a chance to say: “You can’t say that about me”,’ he said, referring to the watered down approach to official reports following court action by publisher Robert Maxwell against the Government.
He also urged the regulator to release important details of its investigation into the firm’s collapse. The regulator had threatened legal action against Green to secure money for the pension fund but eventually settled without going to court. Field said: ‘We want to know the reasoning and the case the regulator had. We want to know the structure of the deal and to see the papers explaining how it came about. We need the documents from the regulator’s lawyers and accountants explaining what the case against Green and Chappell was before the regulator entered negotiations – detailed documents about what had gone on in the firm and at the BHS pension fund.
‘That’s a starting point. I hope she will publish that along with the report. Then the public can judge how satisfactory the settlement was because this is a judgment on her as well.’
Green’s recently filed company accounts state that ‘clearance’ from the regulator following the pension settlement means it did ‘not anticipate any future financial exposure’. The regulator is still in talks with Chappell.