Is the sky light or dark? asked Sir Philip Green at one point. From the point of view of BHS pensioners, it’s lighter than it was at the start of the session. Green has offered to do his best to find a solution to the pensions shortfall. It’s a problem he regards as resolvable and he’s working on a proposal with the Pensions Regulator and Pension Protection Fund.
Jolly good, but there was no detail of what Green’s idea was, or how much it would cost him, or what sum might still fall on the PPF, which is funded by a levy on solvent defined-benefit schemes.
Would this offer have been forthcoming if Green hadn’t been hauled before parliament, or if the outside world had not picked over Green’s sale of BHS last year for £1 to the thrice-bankrupt Dominic Chappell? Impossible to know, but Green’s stance is that he knew he would be responsible for the pension deficit. “We always knew ultimately that we would have to deal with it,” he said.
The puzzle, though, is why Green’s alarm over the pension situation arrived so late in his ownership of BHS. It was only in 2012 that he took a keen interest. Before that, he took a hands-off approach, relying on the pensions trustees and their expensive advisers to do their job.
“There has to be some responsibility on behalf of trustees,” said Green. True, but a sponsoring company is the one that has to write the cheques. One would have expected Green to be on top of a problem that could end up being very expensive for him.
The unanswered question – currently being investigated – is why Green regarded Chappell as a suitable owner of BHS. The answer, let’s hope, will be more enlightened than a morning session in which Green has spent as much time avoiding questions as answering them.
