Politics news - LIVE: Ex-minister names Philip Green as businessman who gagged press over sexual harassment claims

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An ex-cabinet minister has used parliamentary privilege to name Sir Philip Green as the businessman who obtained a privacy injunction over bullying and sexual harassment allegations.

Labour peer Lord Hain said it was his “duty” to out the high street tycoon as the mystery figure who tried to gag the media over reporting of accusations from former employees.

Sir Philip, the 66-year-old chairman of fashion giant Arcadia Group, “categorically and wholly” denied wrongdoing.

Lord Hain used parliamentary privilege to disclose the businessman’s identity in the House of Lords.

The peer said: “I have been contacted by someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal [allegations] about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying.

“I feel it’s my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question, given that the media have been subjected to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of a story which is clearly in the public interest.”

MPs reacted with shock to the statement, with some calling for Sir Philip to lose the knighthood he was given in 2006.

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: “He narrowly and luckily escaped losing his knighthood over the pensions scandal.

“If these allegations are correct, he should certainly be stripped of his knighthood.”

Here’s how we reported on developments as they happened: