MPs are right. Sir Philip Green should surrender his knighthood

The motion they have passed to that effect is only symbolic but they have made a compelling case and the Forfeiture Committee should heed it

Sir Philip Green: Top Man or Billionaire Spiv? (Reuters)

Well how convenient. As MPs were preparing to debate whether Sir Philip and Lady Green should have to settle for being just plain old Phil ’n' Tina came news of a meeting between the former BHS owner and the Pensions Regulator over the retailer’s stricken pension scheme.

The implication? If MPs would just temper their collective desire for vengeance on behalf of their BHS worker constituents a deal might get done. Wouldn’t those workers prefer that to a symbolic gesture?

That was the question hanging in the air. And you thought the BHS saga couldn’t get any more tawdry. As it turned out, MPs approved a motion that the knighthood should go anyway, although it will be for the Forfeiture Committee to decide whether it does or not.

It will be hard for that committee to decide that he should keep it now.

Sir Philip was described during the Parliamentary debate as “a billionaire spiv” by Labour’s David Winnick. Would anyone disagree? He went on to suggest that the tycoon had “shamed British capitalism”. Ditto.

But as Sir Philip’s lawyers never tire of pointing out, nobody’s ever suggested that he did anything illegal.

Immoral? That’s a very different matter. The currently Sir Philip offloaded a struggling business with a pension scheme in deficit on to a patently unsuitable owner and then washed his hands of it.

That owner, Dominic Chapell, squeezed the pips for a £2.6m payday he described as "a drip in the ocean" before the business went under, leaving its employees swinging in the wind. Again, not illegal, although if this affair has done us any service it is to highlight where weaknesses in the corporate legal and governance frameworks might lie.

In the meantime the Green family has a nice new yacht and Sir Philip has continued to enjoy his lavish lifestyle while seeking to bully MPs like Frank Field, chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, who has assumed the role of Sir Philip’s critic-in-chief. Up to and including the issuing of legal threats.

Now, the knighthood was given for services to retail. With his conduct over BHS Sir Philip has done retail and the wider business community a profound disservice. He has damaged the reputation of his industry and of business more generally. He has contributed to the public’s mounting distrust of it. And he has exacerbated that mistrust by failing to take responsibility for what went on, although he’s hardly alone there. Almost everyone who appeared before the parliamentary committees investigating the affair opted to blame the other guys.

“There have to be consequences for this behaviour,” said one MP during the debate.

Indeed so. Which is why this cannot be described as a case of legislators “bashing business” and using Sir Philip as a convenient bogeyman for the purposes of grandstanding, as The Daily Telegraph, among others, has implied.

Sir Philip and has friends are the ones who have bashed business. Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley has bashed business. A long list of bankers have bashed business. They have done so by their actions.

Yes, MPs need to back good businesses, which generate wealth, provide employment, contribute to the country’s economic well-being and pay their taxes. But it is ridiculous to suggest that in so doing they should somehow blind themselves to the failings of business when they occur, particularly the failings that have been exposed in recent months.

Business should not be allowed to operate in a vacuum. There is such a thing as society. Businesses are part of it. They have a stake in it, and they should contribute to it beyond simply generating profits to pay dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.

In the case of the (probably) soon-to-be-Mr Philip Green, MPs, as the representatives of the public, have gone some way towards calling him to account for his actions. That’s exactly what they should be doing as elected representatives.

They have rightly demanded the removal of a title that adds insult to the injury suffered by thousands of BHS workers who have lost their jobs and their pensions.

Far from being condemned by the pro-business right, as they have been, they should be commended for doing so. It is time the members of that group stopped behaving like the three wise monkeys in response to the exposure of flaws in business that need fixing.

All this comes amid signs of a concerted push back from business against proposals for reform floated by Prime Minister Theresa May and her Government. The job of the MPs is therefore unfinished.

As well as criticising Sir Philip Green they need to hold Ms May and her ministers’ feet to the fire on the issue of reforming business, so episodes like this are less likely to occur in future. As for Sir Philip himself, if he has any personal honour the knighthood and the MPs' motion shouldn't have any impact on that pensions meeting, now should it?