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Baroness Michelle Mone should “see sense” and not return to the House of Lords after she admitted she stands to financially gain from a government-linked PPE deal during the pandemic, a minister has told Sky News.

Baroness Mone told the BBC she lied about her links to a PPE firm that was awarded contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

She took a leave of absence from the House of Lords in December 2022, saying she wanted to “clear her name”.

Politics latest: Baroness Mone ‘should have declared’ interest in PPE firm

Pressed by Sky News’ Kay Burley on whether someone who had admitted to lying should be allowed back into parliament, energy minister and Tory peer Martin Callanan said: “I would hope that she would see sense.”

The minister added: “It is a matter for her to decide… [but] I would hope she would not be coming back to the House of Lords.”

Asked if it was okay for a Tory peer to lie like Baroness Mone had admitted to, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said there was “a limit” to what he could say due to legal proceedings.

But he insisted he and the government “take all these things incredibly seriously”.

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“Should an acknowledged liar have the rights to make laws for all of us?” asks @KayBurley

Michael Gove is also facing calls to answer questions before MPs over PPE firm Medpro after he was name-checked by Baroness Mone in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged.

Baroness Mone, who was appointed to the Lords by David Cameron in 2015, said she contacted Mr Gove at the start of the pandemic following a “call to arms for all Lords, baronesses, MPs, senior civil servants, to help, because they needed massive quantities of PPE”.

Mr Gove was chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when the COVID pandemic struck.

Michael Gove  leaves 10 Downing Street
Pic:AP
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Pic: AP

“I just said, ‘We can help, and we want to help.’ And he was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing’,” Baroness Mone told the BBC.

Shadow cabinet office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has now called on Mr Gove to answer questions following her claim.

In a letter to Mr Gove, he said: “This series of events has led to civil litigation and a National Crime Agency investigation.

“Yet these ongoing matters should not preclude you from addressing questions about your own involvement and the role of the government.

“Events so far expose a shocking recklessness by the Conservative government with regard to public money, and a sorry tale of incompetence in relation to the so-called ‘VIP Lane’ for procurement during the pandemic.”

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Mone admits ‘error’ by denying link to PPE firm

Mr Thomas-Symonds said Mr Gove should answer questions about the so-called “call to arms” and what further communications he had with Baroness Mone.

“The very least Conservative ministers owe is maximum possible transparency and there should be an urgent statement to parliament before the Christmas recess,” he added.

Read more from Sky News:
Who is Michelle Mone and what is the PPE controversy?
‘It’s scary… we have nowhere to go’: The families homeless this Christmas
Warnings of Christmas getaway delays – find out where hotspots are

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Labour on MedPro row

The National Crime Agency is investigating PPE Medpro, 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.

In the BBC interview, Baroness Mone insisted that lying to the media is “not a crime”.

She admitted she stands to benefit from a deal between the government and the firm, which was awarded contracts worth more than £200m to supply PPE after she recommended it to ministers.

She also conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the firm.

She owned up to being is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60m of profit from the deal, but said the couple have been made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider PPE failings.

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Baroness Mone has repeatedly denied that she profited from the deal.

She told the BBC: “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”.

The baroness added she did not mean to fool anyone, despite admitting the couple misled the press about their involvement.

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.

A DHSC spokesman said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal cases.”

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Donald Trump says he will postpone 50% tariffs on EU until July

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Donald Trump says he will postpone 50% tariffs on EU until July

Donald Trump says he will delay the imposition of 50% tariffs on goods entering the United States from the European Union until July, as the two sides attempt to negotiate a trade deal.

It comes after the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a post on social media site X that she had spoken to Mr Trump and expressed that they needed until 9 July to “reach a good deal”.

The US president had last Friday threatened to bring in the 50% tariffs from 1 June, as European leaders said they were ready to respond with their own measures.

But Mr Trump has now said that date has been put back to 9 July to allow more time for negotiations with the 27-member bloc, with the phone call appearing to smooth over tensions for now at least.

Speaking on Sunday before boarding Air Force One for Washington DC, Mr Trump told reporters that he had spoken to Ms Von der Leyen and she “wants to get down to serious negotiations” and she vowed to “rapidly get together and see if we can work something out”.

The US president, in comments on his Truth Social platform, had reignited fears last Friday of a trade war between the two powers when he said talks were “going nowhere” and the bloc was “very difficult to deal with”.

Mr Trump told the media in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday that Ms Von der Leyen “just called me… and she asked for an extension in the June 1st date. And she said she wants to get down to serious negotiation”.

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“We had a very nice call and I agreed to move it. I believe July 9th would be the date. That was the date she requested. She said we will rapidly get together and see if we can work something out,” the US president added.

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Shortly after, he wrote on Truth Social: “I agreed to the extension – July 9, 2025 – It was my privilege to do so.”

On his so-called “liberation day” last month, Mr Trump unleashed tariffs on many of America’s trade partners. But since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.

Read more from Sky News:
Gail’s backer plots rare move with bid for steak chain Flat Iron
AA owners line up banks to steer path towards £4.5bn exit

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12 May: US and China reach agreement on tariffs

Much of his most incendiary rhetoric on trade has been directed at Brussels, though, even going as far as to claim the EU was created to rip the US off.

Responding to his 50% tariff threat, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.

“We stand ready to defend our interests.”

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Gail’s backer plots rare move with bid for steak chain Flat Iron

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Gail's backer plots rare move with bid for steak chain Flat Iron

A backer of Gail’s bakeries is in advanced talks to acquire Flat Iron, one of Britain’s fastest-growing steak restaurant chains.

Sky News has learnt that McWin Capital Partners, which specialises in investments across the “food ecosystem”, has teamed up with TriSpan, another private equity investor, to buy a large stake in Flat Iron.

Restaurant industry sources said McWin would probably take the largest economic interest in Flat Iron if the deal completes.

They added that the two buyers were in exclusive discussions, with a deal possible in approximately a month’s time.

The valuation attached to Flat Iron was unclear on Sunday.

Flat Iron launched in 2012 in London’s Shoreditch and now has roughly 20 sites open.

The chain is solidly profitable, with its latest accounts showing underlying profits of £5.7m in the year to the end of August.

It already has private equity backing in the form of Piper, a leading investor in consumer brands, which injected £10m into the business in 2017.

Flat Iron was founded by Charlie Carroll, who retains an interest in it, but the company is now run by former Byron restaurant boss Tom Byng.

Houlihan Lokey, the investment bank, has been advising Flat Iron on the process.

McWin has reportedly been in talks to take full control of Gail’s while TriSpan’s portfolio has included restaurant operators such as the Vietnamese chain Pho and Rosa’s, a Thai food chain.

A spokesman for McWin declined to comment.

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AA owners line up banks to steer path towards £4.5bn exit

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AA owners line up banks to steer path towards £4.5bn exit

The owners of the AA, Britain’s biggest breakdown recovery service, are lining up bankers to steer a path towards a sale or stock market listing next year which could value the company at well over £4bn.

Sky News has learnt that JP Morgan and Rothschild are in pole position to be appointed to conduct a review of the AA’s strategic options following a recovery in its financial and operating performance.

The AA, which has more than 16 million customers, including 3.3 million individual members, is jointly owned by three private equity firms: Towerbrook Capital Partners, Warburg Pincus and Stonepeak.

Insiders said this weekend that any form of corporate transaction involving the AA was not imminent or likely to take place for at least 12 months.

They added that there was no fixed timetable and that a deal might not take place until after 2026.

Nevertheless, the impending appointment of advisers underlines the renewed confidence its shareholders now have in its prospects, with the business having recorded four consecutive years of customer, revenue and earnings growth.

A strategic review of the AA’s options is likely to encompass an outright sale, listing on the public markets or the disposal of a further minority stake.

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Stonepeak invested £450m into the company in a combination of common and preferred equity, in a transaction which completed in July last year.

That deal was undertaken at an enterprise valuation – comprising the AA’s equity and debt – of approximately £4bn, the shareholders said at the time.

Given the company’s growth and the valuation at which Stonepeak invested, any future transaction would be unlikely to take place with a price of less than £4.5bn, according to bankers.

The AA, which has a large insurance division as well as its roadside recovery operations, remains weighed down by a substantial – albeit declining – debt burden.

Its most recent set of financial results disclosed that it had £1.9bn of net debt, which it is gradually paying down as profitability improves.

AA owners over the years

The company has been through a succession of owners during the last 25 years.

In 1999, it was bought by Centrica, the owner of British Gas, for £1.1bn.

It was then sold five years later to CVC Capital Partners and Permira, two buyout firms, for £1.75bn, and sat under the corporate umbrella Acromas alongside Saga for a decade.

The AA listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2014, but its shares endured a miserable run, being taken private nearly seven years later at little more than 15% of its value on flotation.

Under the ownership of Towerbrook and Warburg Pincus, the company embarked on a long-term transformation plan, recruiting a new leadership team in the form of chairman Rick Haythornthwaite – who also chairs NatWest Group – and chief executive Jakob Pfaudler.

For many years, the AA styled itself as “Britain’s fourth emergency service”, competing with fierce rival the RAC for market share in the breakdown recovery sector.

Founded in 1905 by a quartet of driving enthusiasts, the AA passed 100,000 members in 1934, before reaching the one million mark in 1950.

Last year, it attended 3.5 million breakdowns on Britain’s roads, with 2,700 patrols wearing its uniform.

The company also operates the largest driving school business in the UK under the AA and BSM brands.

In the past, it has explored a sale of its insurance arm, which also has millions of customers, at various points but is not actively doing so now.

By recruiting a third major shareholder last, the AA mirrored a deal struck in 2021 by the RAC.

The RAC’s then owners – CVC Capital Partners and the Singaporean state fund GIC – brought the technology-focused private equity firm, Silver Lake, in as another major investor.

A spokesman for the AA declined to comment on Saturday.

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