BHS

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field]

That is a wonderful point to which I shall draw attention. I hope my hon. Friend and others will catch your eye, Mr Speaker, to develop that point.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for how he conducted the inquiry on a cross-party basis. Given his depiction of Mr Green as a Napoleonic figure, does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that although Mr Green came to the Committee in June and asserted that he would fix the problem, several months later that does not appear to have taken place? Mr Green is reported in the media as saying that he will do so in the next couple of days, but the situation is very irregular, given the authority that he seems to have.

[Frank Field]

Again, that is an incredibly relevant point, and it links to the previous one. We were certainly left with the impression that the problem would be sorted shortly. There is no concrete proposal on the table to bring justice to the pensioners, and a question of corporate governance is raised about how someone can take over a company with its pension fund in surplus and a good order book. An interesting aspect of Sir Philip’s evidence to us was that he said he could have annuitised all the pension liabilities when he took over BHS, but decided not to do so. Had he done so, we would not be in this position today.