The Work and Pensions Committee (WPC) and Business and Trade Committee have made further enquiries in relation to the Wilko Pension Scheme, following an evidence session with former Wilko chair, Lisa Wilkinson.

Wilkinson recently appeared in front of the Business and Trade Committee to share evidence on the collapse of Wilko, which prompted concerns around the future of the company’s defined benefit (DB) pension scheme.

Following on from her evidence session, WPC chair, Stephen Timms, and Business and Trade Committee chair, Liam Bryne, sent a joint letter querying whether Wilkinson would agree that there is "at least, a compelling moral case that the family should
forego a small proportion of its wealth to fill the £50 million hole in the pension fund".

"That would mean that the pension promises made by the family to loyal workers over decades would be honoured, rather than broken," the letter stated. "Breaking those promises would, inevitably, leave a permanent and indelible stain on the reputation of your family."

However, a response from Amalgamated Holdings Wilkinson Limited director, Jonathan Griffin, on behalf of Wilkinson, argued that the value of the Wilkinson family in the letter is "inaccurate and vastly over-stated".

"We think it likely that the value being attributed is the value of the Wilko business prior to it entering administration. Clearly that is no longer the value of the Wilko business, which is now zero," he stated.

"As to the remainder of the letter, we are engaged in various legal processes, most notably with the company administrators and as such cannot comment on these issues further."

This was not the only further inquiry from committee chair's Timms and Bryne, as the pair also wrote to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) in reference to the evidence taken by the Business and Trade Committee about the collapse of Wilko.

The letter urged TPR to take full account of evidence provided to the committee by Wilkinson, and asked if, at the end of any investigation, it could consider producing a report under Section 89 of the Pensions Act 2004, setting out how it used its powers in this case—or, if it did not those powers, why it did not do so.

In particular, the letter drew attention to the fact that Wilkinson, in her explanation of the pension fund deficit, and decisions about payments to the fund by the company and decisions about dividends paid by Wilko, was unable to explain in detail how these decisions came together.

It also highlighted comments from Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business at the Department for Business and Trade, Kevin Hollinrake, who acknowledged that directors have a duty to “take into account things like pension liabilities” when paying dividends and confirmed that it would be appropriate for TPR to use its anti-avoidance powers to claw back dividends to help plug the gap in the Wilko pension scheme if the regulator could “identify wrongdoing”.

In addition to this, the letter pointed out that GMB Union's evidence to the committee revealed that it had written to TPR, asking it to use its anti-avoidance powers in relation to the shortfall in Wilko’s pension scheme, telling the committee that “we are hoping, as a result of [TPR’s] investigation, that it finds that Lisa Wilkinson has to reimburse the pension scheme”.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) previously confirmed that £20m will be made available to the Wilko Pension Scheme from securities, with a further £4.5m expected to be made available from other recoveries.

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