public nominations system), but normally cases relate to actions that took place after the award was made. Recommendations are made to the monarch of the United Kingdom, who has the sole authority to rescind an honour. In 2009, Gordon Brown confirmed that the process remains as set out in 1994 by the then Prime Minister John Major in a written answer to the House of Commons: In October 2016, the House of Commons approved a motion to ask the Honours Forfeiture Committee to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood for his role in the downfall of British Home Stores. It was the first time MPs voted to recommend rescinding a knighthood. Notable examples Kaiser Wilhelm II was a Knight of the Garter prior to the start of the First World War, when it was revoked. Roger Casement had been honoured for his human rights work while a British diplomat; however, upon being convicted on 30 June 1916 of High Treason for his role in the Irish 1916 Easter Rising, the King directed that Casement would cease to be a member of the Order of St Michael and St George, his name being stricken from the register, and letters patent were also issued "degrading" him "from the degree, title and dignity of Knight Bachelor". He was executed that August. Benito Mussolini was stripped of his honorary knighthood after Italy declared war on the United Kingdom in 1940. Anthony Blunt, knighted as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures for his services to Art, lost his knighthood in the 1980s when he was revealed to be the "Fourth Man" in the early 1950s Burgess and Maclean spying scandal which also touched on the 1960s Philby spying affair, as a result of which he confessed to the security services. Although Blunt was never charged or convicted, the honour was withdrawn on the advice of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Nicolae Ceaușescu forfeited his honorary knighthood that he earlier received for his friendship with Western democracies. Albert Henry was the former Premier of the Cook Islands. He was later convicted of electoral fraud in the 1980s. Terry Lewis, knighted for his services to Queensland police, was stripped of his knighthood in 1993 after being sentenced to prison on charges of corruption and forgery as a result of the findings of the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Jack Lyons, who had received his knighthood for his huge charitable