The Government has vowed to pursue a company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone for millions of pounds paid for defective PPE at the height of the COVID pandemic after a High Court deadline passed without repayment.

Earlier this month, the High Court ruled that PPE Medpro, a company founded by Baroness Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman and promoted in government by the Tory peer, was in breach of contract and gave it two weeks to repay the £122m plus interest of £23m.

In a statement, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “At a time of national crisis, PPE Medpro sold the previous government substandard kit and pocketed taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.

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“PPE Medpro has failed to meet the deadline to pay – they still owe us over £145m, with interest now accruing daily.”

It is understood that is being charged at a rate of 8%.

“We will pursue PPE Medpro with everything we’ve got to get these funds back where they belong – in our NHS,” Mr Streeting concluded.

Earlier a spokesman for Mr Barrowman and the consortium behind the company said the government had not responded to an offer from PPE Medpro to discuss a settlement.

“Very disappointingly, the government has made no effort to respond or seek to enter into discussions,” he said.

During the trial PPE Medpro offered to pay £23m to settle the case but was rejected by the Department of Health and Social Care.

While Mr Barrowman has described himself as the “ultimate beneficial owner” of PPE Medpro, and says £29m of profit from the deal was paid into a trust benefitting his family including Baroness Mone and her children, he was never a director and the couple are not personally liable for the money.

PPE Medpro filed for insolvency the day before Mrs Justice Cockerill’s finding of breach of contract was published, and the company’s most recent accounts show assets of just £666,000.

Court-appointed administrators will now be responsible for recovering as much money as possible on behalf of creditors, principally the DHSC.

With PPE Medpro in administration and potentially limited avenues to recover funds, there is a risk that the government may recover nothing while incurring further legal expenses.

In June 2020, PPE Medpro won contracts worth a total of £203m to provide 210m masks and 25m surgical gowns after Baroness Mone contacted ministers including Michael Gove on the company’s behalf.

While the £81m mask contract was fulfilled the gowns were rejected for failing sterility standards, and in 2022 the DHSC sued. Earlier this month Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that PPE Medpro was in breach of contract and liable to repay the full amount.

Mr Barrowman has previously named several other companies as part of the gown supply including two registered in the UK, and last week his spokesman said there was a “strong case” for the administrator to pursue them for the money.

One of the companies named has denied any connection to PPE Medpro and two others have not responded to requests for comment.

Insolvency experts say that administrators and creditors, in this case the government, may have some recourse to pursue individuals and entities beyond the liable company, but any process is likely to be lengthy and expensive.

Julie Palmer, a partner at Begbies Traynor, told Sky News: “The administrators will want to look at what’s happened to what look like significant profits made on these contracts.

“If I was looking at this I would want to establish the exact timeline, at what point were the profits taken out.

“They may also want to consider whether there is a claim for wrongful trading, because that effectively pierces the corporate veil of protection of a limited company, and can allow proceedings against company officers personally.

“The net of a director can also be expanded to shadow directors, people sitting in the background quite clearly with a degree of control of the management of the company, in which case some claims may rest against them.”

A spokesman for Forvis Mazars, one of the joint administrators of PPE Medpro, did not comment other than to confirm the firm’s appointment.

Former funeral director Robert Bush has pleaded guilty to 35 counts of fraud by false representation after an investigation into human remains.

The 47-year-old also admitted one charge of fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans at Hull Crown Court.

But he pleaded not guilty to 30 counts of preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body and one charge of theft from charities.

He will face trial on those charges at Sheffield Crown Court next year.

Humberside Police launched an investigation into the funeral home after a report of “concern for care of the deceased” in March last year.

A month after the investigation started, the force said it had received more than 2,000 calls on a dedicated phone line from families concerned about their loved ones’ ashes.

Bush, who is on bail, was charged in April, after what officers said was a “complex, protracted and highly sensitive 10-month investigation” into the firm’s three sites in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Most of the fraud by false representation charges said he dishonestly made false representations to bereaved families saying he would: properly care for the remains of the deceased in accordance with the normal expected practices of a competent funeral director; arrange for the cremation of those remains to take place immediately or soon after the conclusion of the funeral service; and that the ashes presented to the customer were the remains of the deceased person after cremation.

He admitted four “foetus allegations” which stated he presented ashes to a customer falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”.

Rachel Reeves has told Sky News she is looking at both tax rises and spending cuts in the budget, in her first interview since being briefed on the scale of the fiscal black hole she faces.

“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well,” the chancellor said when asked how she would deal with the country’s economic challenges in her 26 November statement.

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Ms Reeves was shown the first draft of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) report, revealing the size of the black hole she must fill next month, on Friday 3 October.

She has never previously publicly confirmed tax rises are on the cards in the budget, going out of her way to avoid mentioning tax in interviews two weeks ago.

Cabinet ministers had previously indicated they did not expect future spending cuts would be used to ensure the chancellor met her fiscal rules.

Ms Reeves also responded to questions about whether the economy was in a “doom loop” of annual tax rises to fill annual black holes. She appeared to concede she is trapped in such a loop.

Asked if she could promise she won’t allow the economy to get stuck in a doom loop cycle, Ms Reeves replied: “Nobody wants that cycle to end more than I do.”

She said that is why she is trying to grow the economy, and only when pushed a third time did she suggest she “would not use those (doom loop) words” because the UK had the strongest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year.

What’s facing Reeves?

Ms Reeves is expected to have to find up to £30bn at the budget to balance the books, after a U-turn on winter fuel and welfare reforms and a big productivity downgrade by the OBR, which means Britain is expected to earn less in future than previously predicted.

Yesterday, the IMF upgraded UK growth projections by 0.1 percentage points to 1.3% of GDP this year – but also trimmed its forecast by 0.1% next year, also putting it at 1.3%.

The UK growth prospects are 0.4 percentage points worse off than the IMF’s projects last autumn. The 1.3% GDP growth would be the second-fastest in the G7, behind the US.

Last night, the chancellor arrived in Washington for the annual IMF and World Bank conference.

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‘I won’t duck challenges’

In her Sky News interview, Ms Reeves said multiple challenges meant there was a fresh need to balance the books.

“I was really clear during the general election campaign – and we discussed this many times – that I would always make sure the numbers add up,” she said.

“Challenges are being thrown our way – whether that is the geopolitical uncertainties, the conflicts around the world, the increased tariffs and barriers to trade. And now this (OBR) review is looking at how productive our economy has been in the past and then projecting that forward.”

She was clear that relaxing the fiscal rules (the main one being that from 2029-30, the government’s day-to-day spending needs to rely on taxation alone, not borrowing) was not an option, making tax rises all but inevitable.

“I won’t duck those challenges,” she said.

“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well, but the numbers will always add up with me as chancellor because we saw just three years ago what happens when a government, where the Conservatives, lost control of the public finances: inflation and interest rates went through the roof.”

Blame it on the B word?

Ms Reeves also lay responsibility for the scale of the black hole she’s facing at Brexit, along with austerity and the mini-budget.

This could risk a confrontation with the party’s own voters – one in five (19%) Leave voters backed Labour at the last election, playing a big role in assuring the party’s landslide victory.

The chancellor said: “Austerity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy.

“Already, people thought that the UK economy would be 4% smaller because of Brexit.

“Now, of course, we are undoing some of that damage by the deal that we did with the EU earlier this year on food and farming, goods moving between us and the continent, on energy and electricity trading, on an ambitious youth mobility scheme, but there is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting.”