BARONESS Michelle Mone has admitted lying about her links to Medpro and that she stands to benefit from more than £200 million in government contracts awarded to the PPE supply firm she recommended to ministers.
The company is currently being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA), while the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has since issued breach of contract proceedings over a 2020 deal on the supply of gowns.
The Tory peer has repeatedly denied that she profited from the deal but in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged, conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the firm and that she is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60m of profit from the deal.
“If one day, if, God forbid, my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children, so, yes, of course,” she told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.
“I did make an error in saying to the press that I wasn’t involved.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, and I regret and I’m sorry for not saying straight out, yes, I am involved.”
She claimed that she and her husband have “no case to answer” as lying to the media is “not a crime” and that they have been made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider failings over PPE.
Mr Barrowman alleged that he had been asked by a government official if he would “would pay more money for the NCA investigation to be called off” in November 2022, but did not go to police on advice of his lawyers.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, appearing on the same programme, indicated he would be “very surprised” if that was the case.
Millions of gowns supplied by the company were never used by health services and the DHSC is still seeking to claw back some of the money.
The couple insist the gowns were supplied in accordance with the contract.
The DHSC declined to comment on ongoing legal cases.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “Our message to those people who sought to use the pandemic to get rich quick: we want our money back.”
The Liberal Democrats urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to kick Lady Mone out of the Conservative Party.
