The Cabinet Office has confirmed that Sir Philip Green’s knighthood is under investigation because of his part in the destruction of BHS, which is costing 11,000 people their jobs and threatening to reduce the pensions of 20,000 others. The Honours Forfeiture Committee, which decides whether people should be deprived of any honours or titles bestowed by the Queen, is keeping Sir Philip’s case under review. Honours are usually removed from people who have been jailed for at least three months for a criminal offence or been struck off an official or professional body, the Cabinet Office explains. But it adds: ‘The committee is not restricted to these criteria, and any case can be considered where there is other evidence to suggest that the retention of an honour would bring the honours system into disrepute.’
Sir Philip has neither been in prison nor been sacked from a professional body, so the only grounds for stripping him of his knighthood could be the other one about bringing the system into disrepute.
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