MICHELLE Mone has said she has “no wish to return” to the House of Lords as a Conservative peer after a company linked to her was ordered to repay £122 million for breaching a Covid-19 PPE contract.
On Wednesday, PPE Medpro was ordered to pay millions of pounds to the UK Government after it was found to have breached a contract to supply surgical gowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Several high-profile politicians have called for Mone to relinquish her peerage following the High Court judgment, with Tory Party leader Kemi Badenoch telling BBC local radio on Thursday that Mone had brought “embarrassment and shame to the party”, and should have the “book thrown at her”.
In a letter to Badenoch on Friday, Mone said there “seems to be a bit of amnesia” about her loss of the Conservative whip, stating that she had “removed it myself by taking a leave of absence”.
She continued: “However, you will be pleased to hear that once I do clear my name, I have no wish to return to the Lords as a Conservative peer; that’s assuming there still is a Conservative Party before the next general election.”
Mone also added in her letter to Badenoch that she was “shocked to the core to read about your inflammatory language” during the Tory leader’s appearance on BBC radio.
She later said that the previous Tory government “knew of my involvement from the outset and welcomed my assistance at a time of national emergency” and that she had not acted differently from other politicians who had referred companies.
She continued: “So Kemi, my role was exactly the same as all other Conservative MPs and peers who were trying to help provide PPE.
“Like me, they would all have acted as liaisons and conduits between the company and the government and would have worked hard to ensure that contracts got over the line and through the red tape that was still present in obtaining contract awards at a time of national emergency.
“So, on the above basis, if I have done wrong then so have all the others in the VIP lane. In which case, you should be calling out for them to resign as well. That’s if you manage to work out what it is they are supposed to have done wrong.”
Mone later said she had “never received a penny from PPE Medpro”.
The letter comes after an online petition calling for Mone to be stripped of her peerage, launched by the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, attracted more than 60,000 signatures in 24 hours.
