Baroness Mone has admitted that she stands to profit from a contract between the Government and PPE firm Medpro, but insisted that she and her husband have “no case to answer”.
The Conservative peer confessed to lying to the press after she repeatedly denied her links to a company that made millions of pounds during the Covid pandemic.
Speaking in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged, the Conservative peer launched a public defence over the controversy around “VIP lane” contracts during the pandemic.
Mone’s now taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords in the hope of clearing her name as the controversy’s deepened.
She says lying to the press was "not a crime" - but have her actions been ethical?
It stems from PPE Medpro being awarded government deals worth more than £200million to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.
The Department of Health and Social Care has since issued breach-of-contract proceedings over the 2020 deal on the supply of medical gowns.
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, she admitted that she is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60m of profit from the deal.
But Barrowmen’s refused to offer insight into his business dealings.
Baroness Mone claims the couple have been made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider failings over PPE, saying she was protecting her family and she’s been vilified.
To discuss the scandal, the investigation and what’s next for Baroness Mone, The Standard podcast’s joined by Evening Standard health reporter Daniel Keane.
Listen above or on your preferred podcast platform here.
