Baroness Mone shares her perspective on PPE scandal

Baroness Michelle Mone says she has been made a scapegoat by the Government for its own PPE failings as she broke her silence about her links to the PPE Medpro firm, currently under investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA). The peer also took aim at former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, admitting she was “not a fan of his”.

The Tory peer and Ultimo bra tycoon made her remarks during a YouTube documentary centred on the controversy surrounding “VIP lane” contracts during the coronavirus pandemic. PPE Medpro was awarded Government contracts worth more than £200million to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has since issued breach of contract proceedings over the 2020 deal on the supply of gowns. Lady Mone told a YouTube documentary that she and her husband Doug Barrowman would be cleared, arguing they have “done nothing wrong”.

She told journalist Mark Williams-Thomas: “We can’t take any more. We are sick and tired reading all the lies every day in the media. I am outspoken and I think everyone feels because we have been silent that we are guilty. The whole thing has been so scary that we don’t know what to do.

“And Doug and I look at one another and we think, ‘today we are going to come out and we are going to respond to messages that said put them in jail, put them in orange jumpsuits, throw acid over her. Right now I think people probably see me as horrible person, a liar, a cheat a thief. I think they’ve just made up their mind and on social media, we have this kind of kangaroo court that everyone decides. And they’ve all made up their mind.”

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She had initially denied having any links to PPE Medpro but admits in the film: “I made an error in what I said to the press. I regret not saying to the press straight away, ‘Yes, I am involved.’ And the Government knew I was involved.”

The film is part of a public fightback by PPE Medpro, which the Sunday Telegraph claimed had funded the documentary. Ms Mone also claimed it is “100 percent a lie” to suggest she was not transparent with officials, and the pair claimed a “DHSC negotiator” suggested the case could “go away” for the right sum.

Asked about Mr Hancock’s claim in his pandemic diaries that she was “aggressive and threatening” in an attempt to help Medpro win Covid contracts, she said: “That’s not true at all. I can sometimes come across feisty, it’s just part of me.

“But I’m not aggressive and I certainly wasn’t abusive and I think he’s got that completely wrong. And to be honest I am not a fan of his anyway.”

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Speaking today, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, who allegedly had involvement in the contract process, insisted that “ministers did not take individual decisions” on pandemic contracts. Mr Gove told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Those decisions were taken after a painstaking process by teams of civil servants who assess the worthiness of any contract that’s put forward.

“So the suggestion, which some have put forward, that somehow ministers were seeking deliberately to do favours, or line the pockets of other individuals, I think is totally unjustified because the decisions were only taken after a proper, coherent and fair procurement process.

“As with any procurement process, might it sometimes be the case that the goods which have been bought turn out to not to be adequate. That is deeply regrettable but that is a consequence of what happened at pressure.”

A DHSC spokesman said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal cases.”

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