Sir Philip Green’s wife asked by MPs to provide evidence to BHS inquiry

As part of the ongoing inquiry by the Business Innovation and Skills committee into the collapse of BHS, MPs Frank Field and Ian Wright have sent Lady Green a letter requesting information on off-shore accounts held by the Green family.

This request for further evidence follows Sir Philip Green’s six-hour grilling by the Business Innovation and Skills committee last week.

Wright and Field have asked for a list of directors and shareholders at each of Lady Green’s companies and details on her husband’s role in running them.

Lady Green, who lives in Monaco, has also been asked to provide evidence on where each company is registered and explain to MPs why that country of registration was chosen.

Lady Green has also been asked to reveal what income she received from her prior ownership of BHS and her continued ownership of the Arcadia group, which includes retailers Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis.

Wright said: “During the hearings of our BHS inquiries, a whole array of further questions have been raised about how a big high-street name with 11,000 staff was sold for a £1 to someone with no experience of retail.

“The evidence so far points to a complex and very opaque web of privately-owned family businesses which helped make the deal possible.

“We are keen to follow the money and look forward to Lady Green in her capacity as owner and ultimate beneficiary of these companies writing to us to explain some of these arrangements and to set out what income her businesses have received from BHS.”

BHS was owned by Lady Green before the business was sold to Retail Acquisitions for a nominal sum of £1 last year. Since then, the company has entered administration, leaving a £571m pension fund gap, which Sir Philip Green told MPs last week he would “sort out”.