Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margot James and Richard Graham

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I applaud the work of the national Living Wage Foundation, but we have a crucial role to play in ensuring that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has the resources to enforce the minimum wage, where it needs enforcing. That is our priority, although obviously I respect the work of the Living Wage Foundation.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

16. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of the recommendations set out in the Hendry review on tidal lagoons.

BHS

Debate between Margot James and Richard Graham

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

I warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing this afternoon’s very important debate. I thank him, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and both Select Committees for their invaluable work in exposing the governance and decision-making issues that have contributed to terrible consequences for so many people formerly of BHS.

Reading the report made me painfully aware of the responsibilities of directors. Under section 172 of the Companies Act 2006, directors must have regard to the long-term consequences for their company of their decision making, and they must consider the interests of employees and customers, and the impact on the community. BHS should have been making plans to mark its 90th anniversary in 2018, instead of which all its stores have now closed, and its employees—some, like Mrs Patel, are mentioned in the report—who had spent most of their working lives building the value of BHS have seen their careers end in redundancy and uncertainty, rather than the secure retirement to which they had been looking forward and had a right to expect.

[Richard Graham]

I simply want to say that it is wonderful to see the Minister in the Chamber today. She is absolutely not scurrying away from anything—I have never seen her scurry away from anything in her life. Does she agree that on a day when we are debating a Back-Bench motion arising from a report by entirely cross-party Committees, the members of which worked incredibly well together, it is really disappointing to hear the SNP spokesman acting like an agitated Humpty-Dumpty talking about monetary policy?

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for his work. Disappointed I may be, but not surprised. My thoughts—and, I know, those of Members of all parties—are with the ex-BHS workers, pensioners and their families.

We have heard about two owners of BHS: Philip Green, who bought the company for £200 million in 2000—it was profitable in the early years—and Dominic Chappell, who even Sir Philip in his ITV interview last week admitted had no retail experience, and was categorically the wrong buyer and the result of a horrid decision. In his powerful speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) laid bare the consequences of the decision to sell to Dominic Chappell.

A key theme in the report is the sharp contrast between the impact of BHS’s demise on workers and pensioners, and the payments received by senior executives in BHS and RAL and their advisers. The report also highlighted serious weaknesses, as has this debate, in the corporate governance of the companies concerned. The Government are very concerned about these issues.

The Prime Minister has already made it clear that we will review corporate governance, including further reforms on executive pay, as part of work to build an economy that works fairly for everybody, not just the privileged few, about whom we have heard so much this afternoon. Strong and transparent corporate governance is vital to provide trust in business and to foster good decision making by companies. The Government intend to consult later this autumn on options to strengthen the existing framework.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool made some salient points about the gap in governance between a public and a large private company. His Select Committee’s inquiry into corporate governance will provide an opportunity—