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 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 fraud and bribery offences relating to the procurement of the PPE Medpro contracts. The couple deny any wrongdoing.
Mone first approached the Cabinet Office ministers Michael Gove and Lord Agnew with an offer to supply PPE in early May 2020. Agnew referred her offer to the government’s “VIP lane”, which gave high priority to companies recommended by people with political connections.
The emails between Mone and the Cabinet Office show that within a fortnight of Mone’s approach to the ministers, civil servants were progressing PPE Medpro’s offer to supply equipment. However, they were also seeking full disclosure about Mone and Barrowman’s relationship to the company.
In an email to Mone, one civil servant, who was working in the Cabinet Office on the government’s emergency response to the Covid outbreak, wrote: “I have … been asked if you could provide a one-line statement to cover the lines we discussed so that we can document the declaration of no conflict.”
Mone replied: “In relation to PPE Medpro Limited, I can confirm that I have no conflicts whatsoever in helping the company to achieve orders through the NHS. I am neither a shareholder of the company nor am I entitled to any financial remuneration or financial benefit whatsoever. You can put this on the record.
“My role is to help the NHS deliver on its PPE targets and to ultimately save lives of patients, medical workers and carers.”
The civil servant replied by thanking the Tory peer and asking for additional clarification about Barrowman’s involvement in the company. “Are you or Doug able to make any relevant statements relating to his involvement? I know his circ*mstances are different but am trying to ensure that everything is as transparent as possible.”
Mone replied half an hour later with an email stating in large text at the top: “This is for the record.”
“To clarify the position on Doug, he has made it clear from the outset that he has put the consortium together that constitutes PPE Medpro Ltd,” she wrote. “Behind the scenes he has significantly negotiated down the prices available to the NHS on PPE from the company. The end result is highly competitive pricing that ensures the NHS benefits from his years of experience in manufacturing, procurement and management of supply chains.
“Doug is a very philanthropic individual and his Barrowman Foundation supports schools building in Africa and he recently built a large centre in Manchester for the Prince’s Trust. He is passionate about the NHS and during the crisis has wanted to help the NHS. This he has done through the procurement of a plentiful supply of cost-effective PPE.”
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She added: “I hope these statements help.” Weeks later, the contracts for £203m were completed.
Mone and Barrowman have continued to claim that the company supplied PPE at competitive prices and saved the government money. However, documents seen by the Guardian indicate that the surgical gowns, for which the government paid £122m under one of the contracts, were bought from the Chinese manufacturer for only £46m.
Guardian analysis of that deal and the second contract, for the supply of face masks, suggests that PPE Medpro and the three other companies in its supply chain shared total profits of approximately £100m on the £203m contracts.
A spokesperson for Mone and Barrowman, who argue they are being “scapegoated” for government failures in PPE procurement, said: “The NCA investigation has been ongoing for almost three years. There were well over a thousand separate communications with HM Government/Department of Health and Social Care and the small number of messages you quote are taken out of context. Doug and Michelle deny any wrongdoing and have not been charged with any criminal offences.”
The Cabinet Office declined to comment; a government spokesperson said this was due to “ongoing legal cases”.
In December 2023 Mone and her husband admitted they had lied to the media for years when they instructed lawyers to deny they were involved in PPE Medpro. In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Barrowman acknowledged that he had made more than £60m profit from the deals, and had transferred money into the trust. The couple said Barrowman’s children were also beneficiaries of the trust.
A YouTube film released in December, that was paid for by PPE Medpro and featured interviews with Mone and Barrowman, reported that the NCA was investigating allegations of bribery, fraud by false representation and conspiracy to defraud.
An NCA spokesperson said that its investigation, which began in May 2021 into “suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro”, was continuing.
