Revealed: Mone told government she wouldn't benefit from PPE deal

Leak shows Tory peer denied conflict of interest ahead of £203m contract

- David Conn

The Conservative peer Michelle Mone assured the government that she was not entitled to "any financial benefit whatsoever" from a PPE company five months before £29m of its profits were transferred into a trust for her benefit.

Leaked emails between Lady Mone and the Cabinet Office reveal that a civil servant asked her to make a declaration that she had no conflict of interest in relation to the company, PPE Medpro, which she had recommended to ministers in May 2020.

Mone stated that she had "no conflicts whatsoever" and that she was not "entitled to any financial remuneration or financial benefit whatsoever".

The civil servant then asked for clarification about the involvement of Mone's husband, the Isle of Man-based financial services businessman Doug Barrowman.

She replied that "Doug is a very philanthropic individual" who "wanted to help the NHS" and was negotiating to lower the prices the government was paying for PPE.

The leaked emails raise new questions over whether Mone, who was appointed to the House of Lords by David Cameron in 2015, was fully transparent about her and Barrowman's involvement and financial interest in PPE Medpro before the government awarded the company multimillion-pound contracts.

In June 2020, within weeks of Mone giving these assurances, the government awarded PPE Medpro two contracts to supply PPE, worth a total of £203m.

Three months later Barrowman was paid at least £65m from the profits on those contracts, according to documents produced by HSBC bank and seen by the Guardian. He secretly transferred £29m from those profits to an offshore trust set up to benefit Mone and her children.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is conducting a long-running investigation into Mone and Barrowman for potential 24 fraud and bribery offences relating to the procurement of the PPE Medpro contracts. The couple deny any wrongdoing.