MPs unanimously back motion to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood

MPs have this afternoon unanimously backed a motion to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood following a debate in which the retail tycoon's character and business practices were torn apart by a succession of MP's speeches.

The proposal tabled at the House of Commons asked for the Honours Forfeiture Committee to strip Sir Philip of his honour (which was awarded in 2006 for services to retail) following the collapse of BHS earlier this year which left 11,000 out of a job and a £571m hole in its pension fund. It is up to the Forfeiture Committee to decide whether Green should lose his honour, though it is understood that it would be hard for the committee to ignore the calls from MPs.

Green had owned BHS for 15 years before selling it to investors led by former bankrupt Dominic Chappell for £1 last year. A year after the deal, the retailer collapsed. MPs argued that Green should not have sold it to someone with Chappell's lack of retail experience and that he had stripped the business of cash while he was at the helm.

Billionaire Green and his family had received dividends from BHS totalling around £600m over the years but he insisted those dividends were fairly awarded when the business was profitable and were therefore funded from profits.

MPs disagreed. Green's long-standing and noisiest critic Frank Field, who is chair of the work and pensions committee who jointly led the parliamentary investigation into the BHS collapse said Green should give up some of his "mega fortune" to plug the gap in the pension fund and labelled him an "a very, very successful asset stripper".

Iain Wright chairman of the business, innovation and skills committee who jointly led the parliamentary investigation with Field gave perhaps the most damning speech of the afternoon, saying:  "[he] took the rings from BHS’s fingers. He beat it black and blue. He starved it of food and water and put it on life support. And then he wanted credit for keeping it alive.”

Green, who is also head of the Arcadia empire, which includes Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge among its brands, has promised to "sort" the pensions problem and said this week a solution was close to being reached. However the Pensions Regulator claims it has yet to see "a comprehensive and credible written proposal" from Green's team. But it is understood both sides are working towards a solution by the end of the year.

Green has also hit back at the MPs' report into the collapse of the retailer and at Frank Field in particular saying that Field was causing distress to Arcadia's 22,000 employees with accusations that Green was running that business like BHS.