BARONESS Michelle Mone said she has “no wish to return to the Lords as a Conservative peer” in a letter to Kemi Badenoch.
Writing in response to the Tory leader calling for her to resign from the House of Lords, the bra tycoon said she was “shocked to the core”.
GettyDoug Barrowman and Baroness Michelle Mone in 2019[/caption]
GettyMichelle Mone said she has “no wish to return to the Lords as a Conservative peer” in a letter to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch[/caption]
Badenoch criticised Mone and accused her of bringing shame on the Conservative Party.
“Where people do wrong, they should be punished,” she said.
In response, Mone wrote in a scathing letter: “You will be pleased to hear that once I do clear my name, I have no wish to return to the
Lords as a Conservative Peer; that’s assuming there still is a Conservative Party before the next General Election.”
She told the Tory leader to stop “playing silly little games” and referred to a number of Conservative Party scandals.
“I’m going to ask you the question what is it exactly that I have done WRONG? Do you know? If so, please enlighten me.”
Mone is facing financial ruin after her husband’s company was ordered to pay the Government millions in damages.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves called for Mone, who lobbied for husband Doug Barrowman’s firm to get highly lucrative contracts, to quit the House of Lords.
She also hailed the verdict, adding: “We want our money back. We are getting our money back.”
However it emerged PPE Medpro has put itself into administration with assets of around £660,000.
The High Court ruled that the firm failed to prove whether its surgical gowns — destined for NHS workers in the grip of a terrifying pandemic — had undergone a validated sterilisation process.
Mone, 53, later hit out, claiming she and Barrowman, 60, were victims of an establishment stitch-up who have been “scapegoated over the PPE scandal”.
The Department of Health and Social Care awarded a £122million gowns contract to PPE Medpro after Mone first approached the then Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove in May 2020.
The company was also given another contract worth more than £80million to supply face masks — both via a so-called “VIP lane”.
Some 25 million gowns, made in China, were delivered by PPE Medpro in August and October 2020.
But just before Christmas that year, the Government claimed that tests had found “a number of the gowns were not sterile”.
PABadenoch criticised Mone and accused her of bringing shame on the Conservative Party[/caption]
It led to legal action, with Medpro arguing it had complied with the contract and the gowns were sterile.
Paul Stanley KC, representing the Government, told the High Court trial in June that of 140 gowns tested, 103 failed.
Mone, who with her husband did not give evidence, was said to have been “active” in discussions which led to the awarding of the contracts.
When the scandal first broke, she initially denied gaining any financial advantage.
Then, in a car-crash BBC interview in December 2023, she admitted that “of course” she would benefit.
It was later reported that Barrowman and Mone — who last year sold their £6.8million yacht, called Lady M — had received £65million.
PPE Medpro recently announced it had net assets of just £666,025.
It applied for administrators to take over on Tuesday, the day before the High Court verdict.
A long-running investigation into PPE Medpro by the National Crime Agency is still ongoing, along with a House of Lords inquiry.
The Government doled out £10billion of contracts for faulty PPE as the country was crippled by the pandemic.
A “hit squad” of investigators has been brought in by the Government to recover funds unlawfully lost.
Mone, who received an OBE in 2010 for her contribution to business, is currently on a leave of absence from the House of Lords, where she was made a life peer in 2015.
GettyMichelle Mone and Doug Barrowman, 2019[/caption]
The letter to Kemi in full
Dear Kemi,
I was shocked to the core to read about your inflammatory language on BBC Radio yesterday calling for me to resign from the House of Lords. Let’s look at a few of your comments in detail and review
them:
“And as the prosecution against her continues, they should throw the book at her for every single bit of wrongdoing that has taken place”
“Where people do wrong, they should be punished. They should face the full force of the law and this is something that I very strongly believe in”.
This was followed up by your fellow Conservative stooge, Claire Coutinho (Tory Shadow Energy Secretary), who said “Lady Mone had acted in a “disgraceful” way”
So I’m going to ask you the question what is it exactly that I have done WRONG? Do you know? If so, please enlighten me.
Prior to explaining my PPE involvement with the Cabinet Office of a Conservative Government, the party that you now lead, I need to point out something to you, “we live in a democratic country where people have the right to be presumed innocent until any guilt is proven.” That’s a basic principle of our society and you, as a Parliamentarian, should know that principle.
Second point for you to absorb, is that you are commenting on a live criminal investigation that could prejudice the outcome of any trial and in so doing you are reportable to the Attorney General for breach of and contempt of court. Does no one ever tell you these things before you and your colleagues make reckless statements in the public domain?
Since you clearly don’t know what the NCA Investigation is all about, I’m going to enlighten you. It has nothing to do with PPE Medpro itself and the contracts won from the government. Therefore, the civil case and the outcome against PPE Medpro has no bearing on the NCA investigation or me.
It was purely a contractual dispute between PPE Medpro and the DHSC. No fraud or unjust enrichment was ever pleaded by the DHSC. This was confirmed by leading government counsel at the opening of
the civil trial.
So if I am supposed to have done wrong, what could that be? Well the case theory of the NCA investigation is that I somehow misled the Conservative government about my alleged concealed
involvement and ended up pocketing a lot of money.
That’s it in a nutshell. Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it isn’t true. And after 4 years and 5 months of investigating a relatively simple
matter, the NCA have never arrested or charged my husband or me.
On the second point, I have never received a penny from PPE Medpro. Reference to £29m being placed in a trust for me and my kids is a lie. It is a trust set up by my husband for the benefit of all our kids; not just mine. This is no different to how my husband manages all his business affairs.
I have no entitlement to any of this money whatsoever.
Back to the first point, the Conservative government knew of my involvement from the outset andwelcomed my assistance at a time of national emergency.
Richard James, the cabinet officer who when dealing with the issue of potential conflicts of interest, stated “I am sure if we investigated the details of many of the “VIP” contracts we would find similar issues and this one (emphasized) has been declared openly to us.”
Your party and your people knew of my role and the role of 51 other mostly Conservative peers and MP’s who introduced contracts through what became known as the VIP lane.
So I ask you the question, did your other colleagues do wrong on the same basis you have suggested in your above quotes? I acted no differently than for example: Matt Hancock who referred 4 companies, Lord Agnew and Lord Feldman who referred 3 companies each, and Lord Chadlington who was actually a director and shareholder of a parent company that won two contracts worth £23.9million and £26.1 million respectively. And let’s not forget Michael Gove (now Lord Gove) and his referral of 4 contracts to his friend, David Meller of David Meller Group Limited.
I recall Lord Gove was another one who was vocal on TV about making sure that justice was done to me. No doubt for the same imaginary wrongs that you seem to have about me. So Kemi, my role was exactly the same as all other Conservative MP’s and Peers who were trying to help provide PPE.
Like me, they would all have acted as liaisons and conduits between the company and the government and would have worked hard to ensure that contracts got over the line and through the red tape that was still present in obtaining contract awards at a time of National Emergency.
So, on the above basis, if I have done wrong then so have all the others in the VIP lane. In which case, you should be calling out for them to resign as well. That’s if you manage to work out what it is they are supposed to have done wrong.
Finally, re me losing the conservative whip, there seems to be a bit of amnesia here about what actually happened. I was advised by your Party Whip in the Lords to take a leave of absence until my name was cleared. In so doing, you automatically lose the whip.
You knew that, so stop playing silly little games that you somehow removed the whip from me. I removed it myself by taking a leave of absence.
However, you will be pleased to hear that once I do clear my name, I have no wish to return to the Lords as a Conservative Peer; that’s assuming there still is a Conservative Party before the next General Election.
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