Former Tory peer Baroness Mone has admitted she lied and lied again as she conceded she stands to benefit from £60million in profit over a PPE contract at the height of the Covid crisis.
She said she was “sorry” for publicly denying her links to the firm involved, which is being investigated by the National Crime Agency.
However, a defiant Baroness Mone added: “I don't honestly see there is a case to answer. I can't see what we have done wrong.”
She claimed she was not trying to “pull the wool” over anyone’s eyes and that she and her husband had been made scapegoats on the issue.
In an interview with the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, she claimed her life had been “destroyed” by allegations about their PPE profits, even though “we've only done one thing, which was lie to the press to say we weren't involved”.
She said that was “not a crime”, adding, “No one deserves this.”
Both admitted that a 30 per cent profit had been made on the contract, around £60 million. But she denied she had bought a yacht with the money and insisted the cash was her husband’s money.
“It’s not my yacht, It’s not my money,” she said. “That cash is my husband’s cash, it’s just like my dad going home with his wage packet on a Friday night and giving it to my mum. So she’s benefiting from that as well, but that cash is not my cash and is not my children’s cash. If one day, God forbid, my husband passes away before me then I am a beneficiary as well as his children and my children.”
But she insisted if he divorced her she would receive nothing.
The astonishing interview came days after Baroness Mone appeared to fight back tears in a film about the case – funded by the company at the centre of the scandal. Two leading experts who appeared in the film have since come forward to say they would not have taken part had they been told its focus or funding.
David Oliver, a former president of the Royal College of Physicians, told the Sunday Times he had been "used’. It was called The Interview: Baroness Mone and the PPE Scandal and presented and produced by Mark Williams-Thomas, a former detective and award-winning investigative journalist. Defending the programme he told the paper it was split into "two distinct parts", the first on the government’s handling of PPE and the second half on PPE Medpro and Mone.
PPE Medpro was awarded government contracts worth more than £200 million to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.
In response to her BBC interview, Labour’s Wes Streeting hit out at those he said had wanted to “make a quick buck at someone else’s expense” during the Covid crisis.
Referring to Labour’s plans for a Covid corruption commissioner if it wins the next election, he said his party’s message is “We want our money back” – and on potential wrongdoers he said, “Don’t worry, we will find them”.
Other guests on the programme also criticised Baroness Mone. Succession actor Brian Cox said: “To take advantage of a situation like that, there is something obscene about that”.
ITV’s Susannah Reid referred to Ms Mone’s claim she had lied over fears of press intrusion for her family, said: “She thinks she is the victim because of the press intrusion… [it is] utterly remarkable she does not see how sensitive this is for people.”
The Conservative peer and Ultimo bra tycoon has been at the centre of controversy over so-called “VIP lane” contracts.
She has repeatedly denied that she had profited from the deal, which she first discussed with government ministers including Michael Gove.
But she told the BBC: “If one day, if God forbid, my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children, so yes, of course.”
The Department of Health and Social Care has since issued breach of contract proceedings over the 2020 deal on the supply of gowns.
Millions of gowns supplied by the company were never used by health services.
Baroness Mone, who was made a peer by Lord David Cameron in 2015, has claimed she is being used as a scapegoat for the government’s Covid failings.
During the interview, her husband Doug Barrowman also repeated his claim he was asked by a government official if he would “pay more money for the NCA investigation to be called off”.
Asked why he did not take the allegation to the police, he said: “I take the advice of my legal team, and the legal team at that point in time suggested that we park that one for now.”
Scotland's deputy first minister called for “absolute clarity” from ministers. Shona Robison said: “I think there are not just questions for Michelle Mone, but I think there are questions for UK government ministers. What they knew and when. And I think we need to hear from them absolute clarity of everything that was known. All of the interactions, what was said, what was promised, what was known. I think we need to have all of that laid out.”
She added that people would be “astonished” at the £60 million profit, describing it as an “eye-watering figure”.
Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden said there were “no favours or special treatment” involved in PPE procurement and said it was “categorically not the case” that cronyism was involved in the “VIP lane”.
“The government's intention in respect of that was to make sure that if legitimate claims came forward, we'd process them quickly,” he said. “There were no favours or special treatment.”
