John McDonnell vows 'no more Philip Greens' under Labour

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said there would be "no more Philip Greens" under a Labour crackdown on "abuses of power".

In his speech to the party's annual conference in Liverpool, Mr McDonnell told delegates a Labour government would legislate to avoid a repeat of the collapse of the BHS retail chain.

The frontbencher also pledged to end the "scourge of tax avoidance" with the creation of a beefed up enforcement unit and committed to scrap controversial trade union legislation.

Mr Corbyn told activists: "We will shake up how our major corporations work and change how our economy is owned and managed.

"We will clampdown on the abuses of power at the very top.

"Under Labour, there'll be no more Philip Greens at all.

"We will legislate to rewrite company law to prevent them.

"We will introduce legislation to ban companies taking on excessive debt to pay out dividends to shareholders.

"We'll rewrite the the takeover code to make sure every takeover proposal; has a clear plan in place to pay workers and pensioners. We will protect their pensions."

On tackling tax avoidance, he said: "In government we will end the social scourge of tax avoidance.

"We will create a new Tax Enforcement Unit at HMRC, doubling the number of staff investigating wealthy tax avoiders.

"We will ban tax-dodging companies from winning public sector contracts. And we will ensure that all British Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories introduce a full, public register of company owners and beneficiaries."

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