The Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband Douglas Barrowman secretly received tens of millions of pounds from PPE Medpro, a company that won more than £200m in government contracts during the pandemic, according to a Guardian investigation. The couple, along with intermediary firms, appear to have made over £100m in profits from deals worth £203m, mostly from supplies later rejected by the Department of Health and Social Care.
Mone helped secure a place for PPE Medpro on the government's VIP lane for politically connected suppliers, lobbying ministers including Theodore Agnew and Michael Gove in May 2020. Bank documents show that Mone and Barrowman received at least £65m from the company's profits, which were moved offshore through a chain of entities in the Isle of Man, Cyprus, Hong Kong and China.
The National Crime Agency is investigating potential fraud by PPE Medpro and raided the couple's Isle of Man estate in April. Mone has taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords, while her husband is selling a yacht, properties and a racehorse purchased after the PPE deals. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was 'absolutely shocked' by the revelations.
