BHS

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Clive Lewis

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis]

I will address that point a little later in my speech. I think the Government have said that they intend to change their tune, and that they are now the party of the workers. We shall see whether they genuinely are, but I will not be holding my breath.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

There have been a number of occasions when there have been similar incidents. Only about 12 months ago, nearly 1,000 jobs went at City Link on the outskirts of Coventry. I tried to get a ten-minute rule Bill through, and it was defeated. It is about time that we had some really tough legislation on these issues.

[Clive Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment—it is one that many of us on the Labour Benches agree with. We want to see action, not words. When scandals such as this break, we here cannot have it both ways. We must either shrug our shoulders and say, “Tough luck, guys, that’s the way the game works, you lose,” or say, “We will legislate to make sure that this never happens again.” Will we do that? Will we look at the role of the auditors who signed off on BHS as a “going concern” just a year before it was sold off for a £1 like a second-hand yo-yo? Will we look at the role of the huge city financial advisers who waved through the sale of BHS to Chappell, or at the pillaging of the pension scheme, that, let us remember, is not unique to British Home Stores? This is the story not of one bad apple spoiling everyone’s reputation, but of a system that is bent, and we know in whose favour.

Good businesses are the lifeblood of our economy, but, as honest, responsible, hard-working business people up and down the country know well, the system often allows good businesses to be undercut by bad businesses. When companies are used to extract wealth rather than to create it, it hurts everybody.

In the near future, the shape of the modern economy will be transformed. Let us make sure that that transformation is truly for the benefit of all and that we do not need to come back to the House again and again to express our outrage at yet another scandal and yet another rip-off of the ordinary people of this country. The rules of the game need changing.

I am delighted to see the cross-party condemnation of Sir Philip Green’s conduct. I am also delighted—if not more than a little surprised—to hear the Prime Minister claiming to have thrown out the laissez-faire fanaticism that has dominated her party’s thinking for the past 30 years. We on the Labour Benches welcome any move towards an economy founded on fairness and democracy. It is, after all, what our party has always stood for. It is not what the Conservative party has always stood for. Are we really to believe that the party of billionaires and tax avoiders is the one to transform our economy in the interests of fairness?

Let us take one example: the Prime Minister’s modest proposal to give workers a voice by allowing them representatives on boards. We welcome that suggestion. Giving workers a voice is what our party has always stood for, but I am not convinced that the proposal goes far enough. Are we to believe that an individual worker or two would have been able to stand up to the likes of Sir Philip Green? A voice is useless without teeth. However, even the Prime Minister’s own Cabinet will not support that modest proposal. Members of the Cabinet are, I surmise, more honest than the Prime Minister, more aware of which side their bread is buttered.

I hope that Sir Philip Green is better held to account as a result of today’s debate. I hope even more that it serves as a wake-up call on deeper problems and proves to be a turning point in how our economy is governed. I welcome the Prime Minister’s rhetorical conversion to our party’s values, but the question that she and other Conservative Members must answer is this: they have talked the talk, but can they walk the walk?