Baroness Mone accuses Chancellor of ‘inflammatory’ language in letter to PM

Baroness Michelle Mone has accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of using “dangerous and inflammatory” language about her, after a company linked to her was ordered to repay millions of pounds for breaching a Covid-19 PPE contract.

The Chancellor is reported to have joked that the Government had a vendetta against peer Lady Mone during a fringe event at Labour’s party conference this week.

Ms Reeves is among the high-profile politicians to have called for Lady Mone to relinquish her peerage, having said she “clearly shouldn’t be in the House of Lords”.

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.

The Conservatives, who have suspended the whip from the baroness, have also called on her to exit the House of Lords.

Peerages can only be removed by an Act of Parliament.

While a life peerage cannot be relinquished, Lady Mone could choose to resign from being a member of the House of Lords.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Lady Mone raised concerns about the conference criticism from Ms Reeves, telling Sir Keir Starmer: “I feel compelled to alert you to the dangerous and inflammatory statement made by your Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.”

She added: “This is one of the most troubling interventions ever made by a senior minister of the Crown. The statement was not directed at PPE Medpro as a corporate entity in civil litigation, but at me personally.

“It confirms that the machinery of the state is being deployed with the specific object of pursuing a vendetta against me, a private citizen and fellow parliamentarian.”

The peer said referring to a vendetta was “connoting vengeance, feud and blood feud, is incendiary and has directly increased the risks to my personal safety”, and claimed her “social media has gone into meltdown with threats and abuse” since Ms Reeves spoke.

Lady Mone demanded an “immediate and formal withdrawal of the Chancellor’s statement”, and public clarification “that there is no Government vendetta against me personally”.

She also called on the Prime Minister to launch an independent investigation into whether “ministers or officials have improperly influenced the NCA, CPS and civil litigation process”.

Sir Keir has faced accusations by Reform UK that he has “incited violence” against its leader Nigel Farage, after he branded the opposition politician’s latest migration policy “racist”.

Lady Mone said these recent claims “compounds the seriousness of the matter” that she raised.

Concluding her letter, the peer added: “Prime Minister, I ask you directly: do you stand by your Chancellor’s assertion that the Government has a vendetta against me? Or will you act decisively to end this campaign, protect my safety, and restore integrity to Government?

“Failure to take urgent action will leave me with no choice but to pursue all available legal remedies, including defamation, harassment, and misfeasance claims, while also taking steps to ensure my personal safety and that of my family.”

Elsewhere, shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho described the baroness’s actions as “disgraceful” and called on her to give up her peerage.

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

PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Lady Mone’s husband Doug 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.

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 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.