On 7 May 2020, Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband Douglas Barrowman filmed themselves clapping for NHS workers from their Isle of Man mansion. Two years later, the National Crime Agency (NCA) is investigating PPE Medpro, a company that received over £200m in government Covid contracts after Mone referred it to ministers. The couple's Ballakew estate was among properties raided in April as part of the probe into potential fraud.
A Guardian analysis has now revealed that Mone, Barrowman, PPE Medpro and three intermediary companies appear to have made in excess of £100m in profits from contracts worth £203m. At least £70m of those profits were moved offshore, with the business chain stretching from the Isle of Man to Cyprus, Hong Kong and China. The Department of Health and Social Care has rejected some of the supplies in a dispute with the company.
Mone had helped secure a place for PPE Medpro on the government's 'VIP' lane for politically connected suppliers. She also aggressively lobbied ministers for LFI Diagnostics, another secret entity of Barrowman's family office. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said he was 'absolutely shocked' by reports that the couple secretly received tens of millions of pounds from PPE Medpro's profits, according to bank documents.
In the months after receiving at least £65m from PPE Medpro profits, Mone and Barrowman acquired a six-year-old gelding named Monbeg Genius for £80,000, a jet, a yacht, and a racehorse. Several of those assets are now for sale. Mone announced this week she is taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords 'in order to clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly levelled against her'.
