Conservative peer Michelle Mone assured the government she was not entitled to “any financial benefit” from a PPE company, five months before £29m of profits were transferred to a trust on her behalf.
Leaked emails between Mone and the Cabinet Office show that an official asked her to make a declaration that she has no conflict of interest regarding the company PPE Medpro, which she recommended to ministers in May 2020.
Mone stated that she had “no conflict whatsoever” and that she was “not entitled to any financial compensation or financial benefit.”
The official then asked for clarification on the involvement of Mone’s husband, Isle of Man-based financial services firm Doug Barrowman. She responded that “Doug is a very philanthropic person” who “wanted to help the NHS” and negotiated to reduce the prices the government paid for personal protective equipment.
The leaked emails raise new questions about 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 interests in PPE Medpro before the government awarded the company multi-million pound contracts.
In June 2020, within weeks of Mone providing these assurances, the government awarded PPE Medpro two contracts for the supply of personal protective equipment, worth a total of £203 million.
Three months later, Barrowman received at least £65 million from profits on those contracts, according to documents produced by the HSBC bank and seen by the Guardian. He secretly transferred £29 million of those profits to an offshore trust set up for the benefit of Mone and her children.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is conducting a long-term investigation into Mone and Barrowman for possible fraud and bribery offenses relating to the procurement of the PPE Medpro contracts. The couple denies all allegations.
Mone first approached Cabinet Office ministers Michael Gove and Lord Agnew in early May 2020 with an offer to supply personal protective equipment. 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 approaching ministers, officials followed up on PPE Medpro’s offer to supply equipment. However, they also wanted full disclosure about Mone and Barrowman’s relationship with the company.
In an email to Mone, a civil servant 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 rules we discussed so that we can document the declaration of no conflict.”
Mone responded: “In relation to PPE Medpro Limited, I can confirm that I have no conflict whatsoever in assisting the company to secure orders through the NHS. I am not a shareholder of the company and am not entitled to any financial compensation or benefit. You can put this on the record.
“My role is to help the NHS achieve its PPE targets and ultimately save the lives of patients, healthcare staff and carers.”
The official responded by thanking the Tory peer and asking for additional clarification on Barrowman’s involvement in the company. ‘Can you or Doug make any relevant statements about his involvement? I know his circumstances are different, but I try to make sure everything is as transparent as possible.”
Mone responded half an hour later with an email that said 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 put together the consortium that forms PPE Medpro Ltd,” she wrote. “Behind the scenes he has significantly negotiated the prices available to the NHS for the company’s personal protective equipment. The end result is highly competitive pricing that ensures the NHS benefits from its many years of experience in manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management.
“Doug is a very philanthropic person and his Barrowman Foundation supports the building of schools in Africa and he recently built a major center in Manchester for the Prince’s Trust. He is passionate about the NHS and wanted to help the NHS during the crisis. He has done this by purchasing an abundant supply of cost-effective personal protective equipment.”
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She added: “I hope these statements help.” Weeks later, the contracts were completed for £203 million.
Mone and Barrowman continued to argue that the company provided personal protective equipment at competitive prices and saved the government money. However, documents seen by The Guardian show that the surgical gowns, for which the government paid £122 million under one of the contracts, were bought from the Chinese manufacturer for just £46 million.
Guardian analysis of that deal and the second contract, for the supply of face masks, shows that PPE Medpro and the three other companies in the supply chain shared a total profit of around £100m on the £203m contracts.
A spokesperson for Mone and Barrowman, who claim they are being scapegoated over government failures to procure personal protective equipment, said: “The NCA investigation has been ongoing for almost three years. There were well over a thousand separate communications with the UK Government/Department of Health and Social Care and the small number of messages you quote have been taken out of context. Doug and Michelle deny any wrongdoing and have not been charged with any criminal offence.”
The Cabinet Office declined to comment; a government spokesperson said this was due to “ongoing legal proceedings”.
In December 2023, Mone and her husband admitted to lying to the media for years when they instructed lawyers to deny their involvement with PPE Medpro. In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Barrowman acknowledged making more than £60 million in profits from the deals and transferring money to the trust. The couple said Barrowman’s children were also beneficiaries of the trust.
A YouTube video released in December, paid for by PPE Medpro and featuring interviews with Mone and Barrowman, reported that the NCA was investigating allegations of bribery, fraud by misrepresentation and conspiracy to defraud.
A spokesperson for the NCA said its investigation, which began in May 2021 into “suspected criminal offenses committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro”, was continuing.