Labour has accused former BHS owner Sir Philip Green of extracting "hundreds of millions of pounds" from the high street chain and taking off "to his favourite tax haven".
Read more: How BHS went from high street perennial to administration
Shadow business minister Angela Eagle said the businessman and "vocal supporter of the Conservative party" had left others to plug a £571 million hole in staff pensions.
Retailer BHS has collapsed into administration after last-ditch talks to find a buyer failed over the weekend, threatening the closure of up to 164 stores and putting 11,000 jobs at risk.
Business minister Anna Soubry told the House of Commons the BHS pension scheme is in the early stages of an assessment by the Pension Protection Fund.
Asking an urgent question in the Commons, Ms Eagle said: "If the worst happens the liability will be covered by the pensions protection scheme and BHS staff will get only 90% of the pension they've worked so hard for and saved for.
"But Philip Green seems to have got much more out of BHS for himself and his family than that.
"BHS staff and the public will understandably want to know whether the former owner who took so many millions of pounds out of the business will have to pay his fair share of the liabilities which accrued during his stewardship.
"It's right that the pensions of working people are covered in the event their employer goes under but in this situation it appears that this owner has extracted hundreds of millions of pounds from the business and walked away to his favourite tax haven, leaving the pensions protection scheme to pick up the bill."
She added: "We know that Sir Philip is such a vocal supporter of the Conservative party that in 2010 the Prime Minister asked him to conduct a review of the Cabinet Office of how to slash Government spending.
"What he appears to have done with BHS is to extract huge value from the business before walking away and leaving all the liabilities to others, including the public purse."
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