Sir Philip Green accuses Frank Field of using him as a 'political football'

Green, whose public row with Field is nearing its one-year anniversary, said the Labour MP was abusing his role as chair of the Work & Pensions Select Committee.

He was responding to Field’s comments on Tuesday that MPs will continue to pursue the tycoon.

Green termed “the latest personal attack”, “unnecessary and wholly unwarranted”.

He said: “I thought, clearly wrongly, that as chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee you had some knowledge and understanding of the very complex pensions system and how it works. That is clearly not the case.

“I strongly object to your vindictive behaviour in using me as your political football. I don’t believe… you should be abusing your parliamentary position in this manner.”

The pair have come to blows in the past over the thorny issue of the BHS pension deficit.

Green has faced repeated calls from both Frank Field, and his Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy counterpart Ian Wright to resolve the issue by stemming the £571m black hole, which he settled in February.

Field made his latest comments on the one-year anniversary of BHS’s fall into administration under the ownership of Dominic Chappell, to whom Green sold the department store group for £1.

Knighthood questions

The circumstances of BHS’s sale and collapse were subsequently the focus of a number of inquiries and there were calls for Green to lose his knighthood.

The MP argued that Green still faces questions over how he dealt with the BHS pension deficit and said he would continue to seek answers.

“When Parliament comes back from the election we need to pursue the charge sheet from the Pensions Regulator against him and what the Pensions Regulator got in return,” he said.

Field implied that Green’s knighthood, which was under threat in the months following BHS’ collapse, was still on the political radar.

He said that prime minister Theresa May was waiting for all reports on the BHS scandal to come in before making a recommendation to the honours forfeiture committee.