MPs must hold Wilko bosses to account over “clear failings” that led to the firm’s collapse and loss of more than 10,000 jobs, GMB has said.

The union urged Parliament’s business and trade select committee to summon the discount high street retailer’s chiefs to give evidence over its collapse in September and October. 

In an open letter to the committee chairman Liam Byrne MP, national officer Nadine Houghton said the devastating closure of more than 400 stores could have been avoided.

“From ignoring clear warnings about the business’s future, to dishing out millions in payouts for owners and shareholders, Wilko management has failed at every turn,” she added.

Arguing Wilko workers deserve answers over bosses shelling out £77 million in dividends to themselves and shareholders during the past decade, she wrote: “The business should have thrived in a bargain retail sector that is otherwise strong and growing.

“But instead, warnings about its viability were ignored, while millions of pounds were siphoned out of the business in dividends.

“Months later, the Wilko workforce still do not have the answers they need and deserve from management.”

She asked the committee hold a special session specifically looking at whether management ignored advice to remain true to Wilko’s customer base as a bargain retailer; in 2022 when it failed to act on advice that a Company Voluntary Arrangement would be needed to renegotiate rents; and whether the pensions regulation should use its statutory powers to compel the Wilkinson family to plug the Wilko defined benefit pension scheme, currently in a £50m deficit “while the Wilkinson family have extracted £9m in dividends since 2019.”

A committee spokesman said its “future work programme is flexible” and the chair was determined to continue working on “exposing corporate misdemeanour.”