Shamed Scottish businesswoman Michelle Mone was last night under pressure to pay back £122m (€140m) that UK taxpayers wasted on useless Covid supplies, writes Neil Sears.
After a crushing defeat in the British high court, there were also demands for the lingerie tycoon, founder of Ultimo bras, to be booted out of the House of Lords, to which she was given a life peerage in 2015.
The angry demands escalated after ‘Baroness Bra’, ennobled by David Cameron, was dubbed a “big gun” in the deal that saw the British department of health buy 25million supposedly sterile surgical gowns for the NHS at the start of the pandemic.
The judge ruled the Chinese made gowns, sought in desperation as the world went into lockdown, were faulty and that PPE Medpro, the firm linked to Baroness Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, should pay back the full £122million contract value.
On the eve of the judgment, however, Ms Mone, 53, implied that PPE Medpro would be unable to pay, with “little funds to make a settlement by itself”, the firm effectively folding.
Yet Ms Mone and her husband reportedly reaped profits of £60m-plus from government PPE contracts totalling £200m during the pandemic, having initially denied they were even involved in PPE Medpro.
And she has previously been pictured in a swimsuit on her private yacht, the Lady M, alongside her boastful caption: “Business isn’t easy. But it is rewarding.”
The couple are also both subject to a criminal investigation over allegations of “pandemic profiteering”, which they deny.
And she is under scrutiny in the Lords for personally pushing PPE Medpro into the “VIP lane” for Covid contracts without revealing her personal interest.
Last night brought a chorus of calls for all the taxpayers’ cash wasted on Ms Mone’s useless gowns to be repaid.
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “We want our money back. We are getting our money back.”
Health secretary Wes Streeting and his health minister Stephen Kinnock also demanded the £122million be paid back – while the Chancellor joined Covid-19 victims’ families in calling for Ms Mone to be kicked out of the Lords.
Yesterday’s court judgment by Mrs Justice Cockerill said Ms Mone had referred PPE Medpro to the British government via the so-called “VIP lane” for personal protective equipment providers on the very day the company was created in May 2020.
Soon, amid fears of a huge Covid death toll, worried civil servants reached an agreement – with Ms Mone brought in as the company’s “big gun” to get the deal over the line – to provide 25 million surgical gowns, despite it having no PPE experience.
But after delivery, civil servants soon decided they were faulty, with no proof they reached required sterility standards.
Mrs Justice Cockerill yesterday agreed.
“Medpro was in breach of contract,” the judgment read. “The department of health and Social Care can recover the full cost of the gowns.”
Medpro claimed to have sterilised the gowns using radiation. No more than one in a million gowns was allowed to be unsterile – but when 140 of the Mone gowns were later tested, an astonishing 103 failed.
Among the contaminants was an organism only discovered in 2017 and originating from a trench more than eight kilometres beneath the surface of the Pacific ocean.
Medpro’s claim that the gowns could have been put to other uses, or sold, was dismissed, as there was no evidence of any demand for 25 million non-sterile gowns.
PPE Medpro is supposed to repay all £122m by 4pm on October 15.
Last night a spokesman for Ms Mone and Mr Barrowman, 60, had not confirmed any plans for an appeal.
Photo: Michelle Mone OBE, Entrepreneur and Ultimo founder attends a photocall to mark the opening and preview of the new collection at Debenhams on March 20, 2015 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Shirlaine Forrest/Getty Images)
