Sir Philip Green would “welcome” opportunity to discuss the future of pensions regulations
Sir Philip Green and Frank Field may finally be seeing eye-to-eye, with a spokesperson for the business tycoon today telling City A.M. that he would "welcome" the opportunity for a serious talk about pensions.
BHS' pension scheme, which ran a deficit worth £571m when the retailer was put into administration last month, has proved something of a sticking point and has sparked an inquiry by the Work and Pensions committee, which Field chairs, into the Pension Protection Fund and Pensions Regulator.
A spokesperson for Green told City A.M.: "Sir Philip would certainly welcome the opportunity to have a serious discussion about the shortcomings of the current pensions regulations."
Read more: Sir Philip Green slams MPs for conducting 'trial by media'
The comment was in response to remarks Field made to the Guardian this weekend suggesting that he would welcome input from Green on redrafting pension protection laws.
"I mean that quite seriously," Field is quoted as saying by the newspaper. "He's an intelligent man. He can be a key player in telling us what is the best deal we can get for many of the thousands of occupational pension schemes remaining – many of which are in big trouble."
Green is understood to have been working on a plan to restructure the BHS pension scheme during 2014, but the project failed to garner approval from the Pensions Regulator.
Read more: Is Sir Philip Green being unfairly criticised over the collapse of BHS?
Earlier this month, the committee took evidence from the Pensions Regulator, where its chief executive Lesley Titcomb explained that the regulator had opened a case into an "atypical" recovery plan it had received for the retailer's pension scheme in 2013.
At the hearing, Titcomb said that the regulator had only learned of the sale of BHS to Retail Acquisitions in March 2015 through media reports. However, a subsequent letter from Arcadia cast doubt on those claims, stating that a potential sale had been brought to the attention of the Pensions Regulator in February 2015.
Green is due to give evidence as part of the inquiry, which is running alongside a separate inquiry by the Business, Innovation and Skills committee into the sale and acquisition of BHS, on 15 June.