MP asks if Sir Philip Green's assets can be seized to plug BHS pensions black hole

The chairman of a committee looking into the collapse of retailer BHS has asked if Sir Philip Green's assets could help cover the pensions deficit left in the wake of the scandal.

Frank Field has sent a letter to chief executive of the pensions regulator, Lesley Titcomb, about whether Green's offshore assets could be seized after he sold on BHS and left a £571m deficit in its pension fund.

Field led a cross-party parliamentary investigation into the folding of BHS which went into administration in April 2015, owing more than £1bn to creditors after being sold by Green to Dominic Chappell for £1.

Some 11,000 jobs were lost when the troubled company went into liquidation. However the pensions deficit affects the retirement funds of almost double that number, at 20,000.

Green and Chappell are likely to be subject to enforcement action by the Pensions Regulator after Green's offer of somewhere between a reported £250m and £300m to save the pensions fund was deemed insufficient.

Green's wife Tina's company, Taveta Investments, is the majority owner of high street giants The Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, thought to be worth £2.25bn.

Field has written to Titcomb to ask if as part of the action against Green "acquiring assets other than cash" would be possible. In the letter, Field also asks for clarification as to what powers the regulator has in terms of "a person resident overseas or a company registered offshore".

When later questioned on whether that included the Green family's super-yacht, Lionheart, Field said: "Absolutely. Nothing is off bounds."

In October, MPs voted unanimously to strip Green of his knighthood which would see him join a select group of knights to have their honours revoked, including former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.