Michelle Mone squares up to Rishi Sunak after PM’s intervention over PPE scandal – latest

Oliver Dowden has said he “doesn’t accept” Baroness Michelle Mone’s claim that she and her husband Doug Barrowman were made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider failings over PPE during the Covid pandemic.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, the deputy prime minister added: “There’s a limit to what I can say, but I don’t recognise that.”

It came after Lady Mone apologised for denying her links to the PPE Medpro firm which was awarded government contracts worth more than £200m to supply PPE after she recommended it to ministers.

In case you missed it, a Tory ex-Treasury minister this month denied the existence of a so-called VIP lane over personal protective equipment (PPE) as the government scrambled to find sufficient kit in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The idea of there existing a VIP lane is “misconstrued”, Lord Agnew told BBC Newsnight, saying: “I don’t call it the VIP lane at all. We were getting hundreds of offers a day to help from largely very decent people who were as worried as we were in government.

“And we had to find some way of getting the more critical ones through into the procurement triaging system. So that’s all it was. The idea of it being a VIP line is very misconstrued.”

Lord Agnew resigned in January this year from his ministerial posts over what he described at the time as the “schoolboy” handling of fraudulent Covid-19 business loans.

Baroness Michelle Mone apologised after denying her links to the PPE Medpro firm which was awarded contracts worth more than £200m to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers, reports my colleague Holly Patrick.

The Conservative peer was questioned by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday on the controversy surrounding the firm, which is being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

“I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. I regret and I’m sorry for not saying straight out ‘yes I am involved’,” Lady Mone said.

In his column on Michelle Mone’s BBC interview, our associate editor Sean O’Grady writes:

“I’m not sure who’s advising Baroness (Michelle) Mone and her hubby Doug Barrowman these days.

“Hannah Ingram-Moore maybe, who, during a catastrophic interview earlier this year with Piers Morgan, destroyed the charitable foundation set up in the name of Captain Sir Tom Moore, her dear old dad and national treasure?

“Or maybe Lady Mone was recently at a perfectly normal shooting party and bumped into his former royal highness the Duke of York, a chap always ready with a few useful tips about getting out of a fix.

“Whoever is at the ignoble lady’s elbow these days isn’t serving her interests terribly well. Presumably advised to do so as part of some PR charm offensive, the pair offered themselves up to Laura Kuenssberg for an interview to explain how they’d been scapegoated over the coronavirus personal protective equipment (PPE) affair, and how the mess (which wasn’t really a mess, because nothing was wrong anyway) was all everyone’s else’s fault and nothing to do with them.”

To be kicked out of the Lords, its Conduct Committee would have to recommend that Michelle Mone be expelled before fellow members voted on the punishment.

But once removed, former members maintain their titles, meaning that if she were expelled she could remain Baroness Mone.

The peerage itself can then only be removed by an act of parliament, such as the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 which was used to to remove British peerages from “enemies” of the UK during the First World War.

Michelle Mone has accused Rishi Sunak of “pointing fingers to save his own skin”.

The Tory peer pointed to back to 2020, when Mr Sunak refused to say whether he stood to profit from an increase in the share price of Covid vaccine manufacturer Moderna, which was one of the biggest investments held by the hedge fund he co-founded and then left in 2013 before entering parliament.

Baroness Mone tweeted: “Does Rishi Sunak stand to profit from the Moderna Covid vaccine during the pandemic? I suggest that he might want to take that ‘incredibly seriously’ before pointing fingers to save his own skin!”

PPE Medpro has been under investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) since May 2021, with search warrants executed at Baroness Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman’s homes in London and the Isle of Man as well as the firm’s offices.

The NCA is investigating “suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro”.

The government has also launched legal proceedings against PPE Medpro over £122m worth of gowns the Department for Health and Social Care believes were not fit for use.

The Indepedent wants to know if you think Baroness Mone should be barred from the House of Lords following her latest admission.

Or do you agree that there isn’t “a case to answer” and Baroness Mone is being used as a “scapegoat” for the government’s Covid failings?

If you want to share your opinion then add it in the comments in this article and we’ll highlight the most insightful ones as they come in. All you have to do is sign up and register your details – then you can then take part in the discussion: