Tories urge Michelle Mone to hand back peerage after PPE contract breach

Baroness Michelle Mone should resign from the House of Lords after a company linked to her was ordered to repay millions of pounds for breaching a Covid-19 PPE contract, a leading Conservative has said.

Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho described the actions of Lady Mone, who currently has the Tory whip suspended, as “disgraceful” and called on her to relinquish her peerage.

Her party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, told BBC local radio on Thursday Lady Mone had brought “embarrassment and shame to the party”, and should have the “book thrown at her”.

On Wednesday, PPE Medpro, a company linked to Lady Mone, was ordered to pay back nearly £122 million to the Government after it was found to have breached a contract to supply surgical gowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lady Mone criticised the High Court judgment, calling it a win for the “establishment”, while her husband Doug Barrowman said it was a “travesty of justice”.

The peer has claimed she is the target of a “vendetta” by the Government.

The Conservatives piled pressure on Lady Mone, after Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday she “clearly shouldn’t be in the House of Lords”.

Ms Coutinho told Sky News: “I think it was disgraceful what she’s done.

“It was also a Conservative government who started the lawsuit. The lawsuit, which means that she’s had to repay this money, started in, I think it was 2022, when Rishi Sunak was prime minister.

“We’ve taken away the Conservative whip, she’s no longer a Conservative peer, and I think the honourable thing to do, particularly in light of this, would be to resign.”

Speaking to BBC Radio Derby, Mrs Badenoch said: “Michelle Mone is not a Conservative peer. She has had the whip removed because she did something wrong. She brought a lot of embarrassment and shame to the party, and made people think that she had got those contracts because she was a Conservative. Absolutely not the case.

“As the prosecution against her continues, they should throw the full book at her for every single criminal act or every single bit of wrongdoing that has taken place.”

PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Mr Barrowman, was awarded Government contracts by the former Conservative administration to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic, after Lady Mone recommended it to ministers.

She then acted as the firm’s “big gun” in talks with officials to help get the contract over the line.

In her 87-page ruling, Mrs Justice Cockerill said the gowns “were not, contractually speaking, sterile, or properly validated as being sterile”, which meant they could not be used in the NHS.

The contract was awarded despite concerns being raised about the “potential for conflict of interest” given the Tory peer’s husband was involved with the firm.

Barristers for PPE Medpro told the trial it had been “singled out for unfair treatment” and accused the Government of “buyer’s remorse”, claiming the gowns became defective because of the conditions in which they were kept after being delivered.

Mrs Justice Cockerill found PPE Medpro had breached the contract.

She said the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) was entitled to the price of the gowns as damages, but not the costs of storing the items.

The judge said the money must be paid by 4pm on October 15.

Mr Barrowman described the ruling as a “travesty of justice”, adding: “Her judgment bears little resemblance to what actually took place during the month-long trial, where PPE Medpro convincingly demonstrated that its gowns were sterile.

“This judgment is a whitewash of the facts and shows that justice was being seen to be done, where the outcome was always certain for the DHSC and the Government.”

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK campaign group welcomed the court ruling and called for Lady Mone to be stripped of her title.