The Conservative peer Michelle Mone has acknowledged for the first time that she was involved with a company that was awarded government PPE contracts worth £200m during the Covid pandemic.
Lady Mone’s husband, Douglas Barrowman, has also acknowledged for the first time that he was involved in the company, PPE Medpro.
A representative of Barrowman told the Guardian that the Isle of Man-based businessman was an investor in PPE Medpro, and chaired and led the operation to supply personal protective equipment.
The admissions raise questions about years of denials from the couple. Until now, Mone and Barrowman have consistently and emphatically denied to the Guardian, via lawyers, that they were involved in the company.
The investigation is ongoing. I very much hope this admission is a sign that it is getting somewhere.
Is there a process for removing a peerage? Asking for an incoming Labour government.
If not, there needs to be.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A representative of Barrowman told the Guardian that the Isle of Man-based businessman was an investor in PPE Medpro, and chaired and led the operation to supply personal protective equipment.
The representative said: “The UK government was fully aware of Baroness Mone’s involvement; like many other peers and MPs on the high priority lane, she acted as an intermediary/liaison between PPE Medpro and the Cabinet Office/Department of Health and Social Care.”
The representative added that Barrowman, who runs the Knox Group, a tax and wealth advisory firm in the Isle of Man, “was the chairman and leader of the PPE Medpro consortium that supplied the UK government”.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) granted PPE Medpro two contracts in May and June 2020, near the start of the pandemic, to supply millions of face masks and sterile surgical gowns, for a total of £203m.
Last November the Guardian reported that leaked HSBC bank documents indicated Barrowman was paid at least £65m from PPE Medpro’s profits, then transferred £29m into a trust for Mone and her three adult children.
“Both Doug Barrowman and his wife, Baroness Mone, made a full written disclosure of their involvement to the Cabinet Office prior to the award of the PPE contracts,” he said.
The original article contains 938 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
