Baroness Michelle Mone admits mistake in denying links to PPE firm awarded huge COVID pandemic contracts
Baroness Michelle Mone says she regrets denying her connection to a PPE firm awarded huge contracts during the pandemic – and which is now being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Following a silence lasting almost two years, the Ultimo bra tycoon has taken part in a YouTube documentary funded by the same company, PPE Medpro.
She and her husband, Doug Barrowman, have been the subject of a “kangaroo court”, she said.
The public now perceives her as a “horrible person, a liar, a cheat, a thief”, and she and Mr Barrowman “just can’t take anymore”, she added.
In 2020, PPE Medpro was awarded government contracts worth more than £200m to supply masks and gowns after she recommended it to ministers.
There was a so-called “VIP lane”, allowing politicians and officials to send private offers of PPE to the government. But Baroness Mone said the first she knew of such access was when she read about it.
In November 2020, Baroness Mone said via her lawyer that she was “not connected in any way with PPE Medpro”, The Guardian reported.
Lawyers for her husband, Mr Barrowman, also denied his involvement, saying he “never had any role or function in PPE Medpro”, the newspaper added.
Now, however, Baroness Mone has said in the documentary: “I regret not saying to the press straight away, ‘yes I am involved’,” describing it as an “error”.
She added: “The government knew I was involved and the emergency team, the cabinet team, knew I was involved – the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), knew I was involved, the NHS – all of them.
“The legal team advised myself and my husband not to comment and not to say of my involvement in PPE Medpro.”
Baroness Mone says she and her husband ‘will win’
‘We’ve done nothing wrong – it’s cruel, it’s nasty’
Baroness Mone was a “conduit” and a “liaison person” who “brought it all together”, she said.
She added: “I wanted the NHS to succeed, I wanted a win-win situation for everyone.
“Both myself and my husband declared their interests and if they had any issue with that whatsoever, when they knew of my involvement and my husband’s involvement, why did they ever give the contracts in the first place?
“They must have been satisfied – they knew everything.”
Baroness Mone and her husband decided to speak out, she said, because they are “sick and tired of reading all the lies every single day in the media”.
Asked how it would end, she said: “We will win, because we’ve done nothing wrong, and it’s cruel, and it’s nasty, but we will win.”
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‘Look into that VIP lane’
Regarding PPE Medpro, Baroness Mone said: “I put their names forward [and] the guys got the contracts on their own merits.”
Asked if she got favourable treatment from the DHSC and the government because she was a baroness, she said: “Absolutely not.”
If that was the case, she went on, “you should look at all the other MPs, baronesses, lords, senior civil servants that all put names forward that went into that VIP lane”.
She added: “They should all be the same as me right now – why are they not?”
Regarding discussion of the case on social media, Baroness Mone said she and Mr Barrowman had been subject to a “kangaroo court” in which everyone has “made their mind up”.
According to the UK Parliament website, PPE Medpro was set up on 12 May 2020 and “awarded its first contract, worth £81m, on 12 June to supply 210 million face masks”.
The DHSC awarded a second contract on 26 June, worth £122m, to supply sterile surgical gowns.
The department has since issued breach of contract proceedings over the 2020 deal for the supply of gowns.
Sky News has not been able to put the allegations directly to Baroness Mone.
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
Read more:
How UK North Sea platforms dump gas
Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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