Leaked files appear to suggest the Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in a PPE business that was awarded more than £200m in government contracts after she referred it to the Cabinet Office.
Barrowman, an Isle of Man-based financier, may have played a central role in the business deal that enabled PPE Medpro to sell millions of masks and surgical gowns to the government at the start of the pandemic, documents suggest.
The identities of the people behind PPE Medpro, which was awarded contracts by the government in May and June 2020, has been an enduring mystery ever since and the subject of considerable speculation.
Citing confidentiality obligations, PPE Medpro, which was set up weeks before securing the lucrative government contracts, has always refused to identify what it described as the “consortium of successful entrepreneurs that comprise, have financed and backed” the company.
It was not until November 2021 – 18 months after PPE Medpro won its first contract – that a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Mone had referred the company to the Cabinet Office, leading to it being processed through the high-priority VIP lane for politically connected companies. As if this is not bad enough;
The cost of the PPE was £45m, they were sold to NHS for in excess of £122m, oh and they didn't pass the safety tests. There are even allegations that they tried to fake the BSI mark.
Gove is involved too.
So much for the party of fiscal responsibility
