MICHELLE Mone is facing calls for her assets to be frozen after a company linked to her was ordered to repay millions of pounds for breaching a Covid-19 PPE contract.
Last week, PPE Medpro was ordered to pay back nearly £122 million to the Government after it was found to have breached a contract to supply surgical gowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Several politicians, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, called for Mone to relinquish her peerage following the High Court judgment.
And now, the Sunday Mail reports cross-party outrage calling for Mone’s assets to be frozen following the ruling.
Mone, 53, and her billionaire husband Doug Barrowman, 60, took £65 million in profits from PPE Medpro, with the money then moved into trusts and accounts linked to the couple and Mone’s three children.
We told how Mone made millions in profits selling off luxury Glasgow townhouses in the space of 12 months. Glasgow-born Mone and her billionaire husband Doug Barrowman previously had £75m worth of assets frozen by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
And now, Scottish politicians have called for Mone’s assets to be frozen and for her to be removed from the House of Lords.
SNP MP Chris Law told the newspaper: “Companies connected to Michelle Mone owe the public purse £122m so it would beggar belief if she is able to still profit from her businesses.
“It is now time all assets were frozen so that the public can get their money back.
“Michelle Mone cannot also continue to have access to the expenses of a peer in the House of Lords.
“It’s time for the age of one law for them, and another for everyone else to come to an end.”
Mone is currently on a leave of absence from the Lords, and said following the ruling that she had "no wish" to return as a Tory peer.
Patrick Harvie, Scottish Greens MSP, said: “Since Mone’s disgrace she’s shown no remorse or concern for anyone but herself.
“She continues to sit as a Lord with the right to claim expenses and vote on our laws.
“If Mone and her husband are allowed to come out the other end of this with their millions intact, by squirrelling it away in assets, offshore or with third parties, it will represent a huge moral hazard within our democracy. The Government must use the courts to pursue every penny.”
Meanwhile, Susan Murray, LibDem MP for Mid Dunbartonshire, added: “The public will be absolutely outraged.
“I would like to see all assets linked to Michelle Mone frozen so that she cannot continue to benefit from assets that may have been bought with the profits from Covid contracts.
“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were wasted on Covid contracts, lining the pockets of Conservative donors and friends while the public was left to pick up the bill.”
It is understood that last year a house in west London linked to Mone’s sons firm was sold, while the couple also sold a £19m home in London and £6.8m yacht.
PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Mone’s husband Barrowman, was awarded Government contracts by the former Conservative administration to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic, after Mone recommended it to ministers.
In her 87-page ruling on Wednesday, Justice Cockerill said the gowns “were not, contractually speaking, sterile, or properly validated as being sterile”, which meant they could not be used in the NHS.
Barristers for PPE Medpro told the trial it had been “singled out for unfair treatment” and accused the Government of “buyer’s remorse”, claiming the gowns became defective because of the conditions in which they were kept after being delivered.
Justice Cockerill found PPE Medpro had breached the contract.
She said the Department of Health and Social Care was entitled to the price of the gowns as damages, but not the costs of storing the items.
Mone criticised the judgment, calling it a win for the “establishment”, while Barrowman said it was a “travesty of justice”.
