Thirty stores will close on July 30 including other Kent stores, Worthing and Gravesend.
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Some 11,000 BHS staff across the country have been left devastated by the news.
Frank Field has brushed off the looming threat of legal action from retail billionaire Sir Philip Green, urging the tycoon to instead “get on with signing a cheque” to cover BHS’s pension deficit.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Mrs May would learn lessons for the future from the parliamentary inquiry which branded Sir Philip the “unacceptable face of capitalism”.
Mr Field said the collapse of BHS, with 11,000 jobs set to disappear by 20 August, when the final BHS stores close, raised a “severe question [about] the suitability of the protagonists in this extraordinary tale – and their sidekicks – to be afforded these responsibilities again”.
Pressure has been mounting on Green, especially since the parliamentary inquiry report was published on Monday and his knighthood was placed under review last week, to bail out the £571 million pension deficit at BHS which his own funds – especially since he raked in over £400 million in dividends when his firm Arcadia Group owned the retailer from 2000 to 2015.
“We also call on Sir Philip Green to honour the two promises he made to BHS staff as soon as possible after the company went into administration”. Secondly, to “sort” the pension scheme and we await details of what he proposes.
In a damning report, the UK Parliament’s Work and Pensions and Business Committees described Green’s “rush” to push through with the sale of BHS as being “the culmination of a sorry litany of failures of corporate governance and greed”.
“I will be seeking assurances from the Business Secretary that those who have proven themselves unsuitable stewards of companies with thousands of employees – and huge pensions obligations – will not be given the opportunity to repeat their bad mistakes”, he added.
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“In the meantime we are providing the support, advice and representation our members require at this hard time”.
