A company linked to Tory peer Michelle Mone has been ordered to repay almost £122 million to the government for breaching a contract to supply surgical gowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) sued PPE Medpro at the High Court over allegations that it breached a deal for the 25 million gowns because the items were “faulty” by not being sterile.
Baroness Mone criticised the High Court judgment on Wednesday, calling it a win for the “establishment”, while her husband, Doug Barrowman, said it was a “travesty of justice”.
Meanwhile, health secretary Wes Streeting said: “PPE Medpro put NHS staff and patients in danger with substandard kit whilst lining their own pockets with taxpayers’ money at a time of national crisis.”
But the peer, who is on a leave of absence from the Lords, has claimed she is the target of a “vendetta” by the government.
Below, The Independent takes a look at who exactly Baroness Mone is.
Who is Michelle Mone?
Born in Glasgow, Baroness Mone left school at 15 with no qualifications and gave birth to her first child at 18. She worked as a model before starting work at Labatt Brewers, where she was appointed Head of Sales and Marketing for Scotland aged 22.
Baroness Mone claims she fabricated qualifications in order to get a job at Labatt and her "foot in the door". According to her website, she was made redundant two years later and founded her first of several companies with the £500 redundancy sum she received. She launched MJM International Ltd in 1996 with her then-husband Michael, and founded lingerie brand Ultimo three years later.
She told The Guardian in 2010 that her ambition was spurred by the experience of raising a child while struggling financially. “I was 19 and my friends were away in Ibiza partying, or students. I was stuck at home, in this wee flat, with no TV, skint. Couldn't even buy food. My husband was a trainee at the time. He was on £13,000 a year and that was our income between the two of us. We could have got by. I mean I didn't have to get a job. But I was really hungry. I wanted to make something of my life.”
In 2012, Baroness Mone bought her ex-husband out of the company they ran after their split and began a partnership with the lingerie group MAS Holdings. She sold Ultimo two years later. Other business ventures of hers included joining up with naturopathic 'weight-loss' pills brand TrimSecrets.
She became Start-Up Business Tsar under David Cameron’s government in 2015, before being appointed a lifetime peerage as a Baroness in the House of Lords that same year.
Baroness Mone has been in and out of headlines ever since. She used her first vote in the Lords to support a delay in cuts to tax credits, subsequently facing online cries of “shame on you”. She was then hit by a second wave of criticism when she tweeted about never “making excuses” and being “proactive” a day after voting to oppose the amendment.
But she was plunged into another level of controversy over PPE Medpro.
What is PPE Medpro?
PPE Medpro was set up on 12 May 2020 and is a consortium led by Baroness Mone’s husband Mr Barrowman, a billionaire businessman.
It was one of the private companies awarded valuable government contracts by the former Conservative administration to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.
PPE Medpro was awarded its first contract, worth £81 million, a month after it was set up to supply 210 million face masks. The DHSC granted a second contract a couple of weeks later, worth £122 million for sterile surgical gowns.
Why was the PPE Medpro contract controversial?
The government needed to quickly buy a huge amount of PPE to respond to Covid, leading it to spend more than £12 billion in the first couple of years of the pandemic.
A House of Commons committee subsequently found this to be a “haphazard purchasing strategy”, which was “rushed and outside the usual procurement route”, leading to “many risky contracts”, including with unproven, newly created companies. The result was some £9 billion written off, including £4 billion of PPE that cannot be used in the NHS.
A supply chain called the ‘High Priority Lane’ was established at that time, which allowed referrals of potential suppliers from MPs, Peers, ministers, and senior officials. Later, in January 2022, the High Court ruled that the use of the High Priority Lane was unlawful.
PPE Medpro was among the companies awarded contracts after being referred through this High Priority Lane by Baroness Mone on the day it was incorporated in May 2020.
Baroness Mone played a significant role in securing the contract for PPE Medpro, acting as the firm’s “big gun” in talks with officials to help get it over the line. The judge on Wednesday said Baroness Mone facilitated a call between DHSC and PPE Medpro officials during contract negotiations, and “took up the fight” for the company in talks with the Cabinet Office.
The contract was awarded despite concerns being raised about the “potential for conflict of interest” given the Tory peer’s husband was involved with the firm.
In January 2022, the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards announced an inquiry into Baroness Mone’s claimed involvement in procuring contracts for PPE Medpro, allegedly leading to potential breaches of the House of Lords Code of Conduct. It was announced that Baroness Mone would be taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords on 6 December 2022.
The Commissioners’ investigation is currently on hold due to an ongoing criminal investigation into Medpro by the National Crime Agency.
On 19 December 2022, the government launched legal proceedings against PPE Medpro on the second contract, worth £122 million for the supply of gowns. The DHSC stated that it did not believe that these gowns were fit for use, a claim that PPE Medpro denied.
What was the High Court’s ruling against PPE Medpro today?
At the High Court on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Cockerill found PPE Medpro had breached the contract to supply 25 million surgical gowns over allegations the items were “faulty” by not being sterile.
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 to the DHSC.
But the judge ordered PPE Medpro to repay almost £122 million to the government, with a deadline of 4pm on 15 October. She added that the DHSC was entitled to the price of the gowns as damages, but not the costs of storing the items.
What has been the response to the ruling?
In response to the ruling, Mr Streeting said: “Today’s court ruling makes clear we won’t stand for it and we’re coming after every penny owed to our NHS. This government will ruthlessly pursue any company which tried to exploit the pandemic for their own ends while our health service was fighting to save lives.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has been leading work within government to claw back money lost during the pandemic, also welcomed the judgment. She said: “We want our money back. We are getting our money back.”
Meanwhile, Mr Barrowman said the judge gave the DHSC “an establishment win despite the mountain of evidence in court against such a judgment”.
He added: “Her judgment bears little resemblance to what actually took place during the month-long trial, where PPE Medpro convincingly demonstrated that its gowns were sterile. This judgment is a whitewash of the facts and shows that justice was being seen to be done, where the outcome was always certain for the DHSC and the government.”
Baroness Mone said: “Today’s judgment against PPE Medpro is shocking but all too predictable. It is nothing less than an establishment win for the government in a case that was too big for them to lose.”
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK campaign group welcomed the court ruling and called for Baroness Mone to be stripped of her title. Peerages can only be removed by an act of Parliament. While a life peerage cannot be relinquished, Baroness Mone could choose to resign from being a member of the House of Lords.
Starmer vows to work with Middle East powers to implement Trump plan for Gaza
Labour seeks mobile phones ban in schools as ministers accused of ‘passing buck’
Greggs confirms price rises following weak summer sales
Support for digital ID plummets after Starmer announces policy
Met officers who showed ‘support for Tommy Robinson’ are ‘likely to be sacked’
Fossil reveals new species of ancient Jurassic reptile which roamed UK
