Labour queries PPE contracts and Baroness Mone links

Controversial: Politics & Govt Politics & Govt: In The News
, , ,
1

Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner has asked ministers why they are refusing to release details of PPE contracts for a firm being investigated by the National Crime Agency. She said supplier PPE Medpro was reportedly raided by police, along with the home of Tory peer Baroness Mone - who she said was linked to the firm. There were serious questions about due diligence, she told MPs.

Baroness Mone has previously denied any link to PPE Medpro.

In January, the House of Lords launched an investigation into her “alleged involvement in procuring contracts for PPE Medpro” and whether it potentially breached the code of conduct.

Baroness Mone’s lawyers have previously told the Guardian she had no association with the company or any involvement in the awarding of contracts.

PPE Medpro was awarded two contracts to supply protective equipment in May 2020 as part of the so-called “VIP lane”, which allowed MPs, ministers and senior officials to pass on offers of help from suppliers, who could be awarded contracts without competing bids.

In June 2020, it won another contract worth £122m to supply millions of protective gowns to the NHS. But the BBC revealed none were ever used, and the company is in dispute with the government about the contract.

Angela Rayner said there were “serious questions” about the contracts. The Labour deputy leader accused ministers of being unwilling to answer because “they know there is suspicion about the way they handled those contracts”.

Saying that storage of unusable or unneeded PPE was costing £500,000 a day, she asked whether the government’s Procurement Bill would “prevent cronyism from corrupting our government and wasting public money”.

Another Tory dodgy deal seems about to be exposed.

2

If we waited for labour we wouldn’t get anything at all.

3

Wikipedia says

On Wednesday 27 April 2022 Mone’s homes in London and on the Isle of Man and associated business addresses were raided by the police, who have launched an investigation into potential fraud. The National Crime Agency is pursuing a tandem investigation into PPE Medpro.

Surely Angela Rayner should be keeping her nose out of it at this time.

4

It seems that this “story” failed to catch the public eye at the time:

Lady (Michelle) Mone OBE, as she styles herself on social media, lives in a vast U-shaped manor house on the Isle of Man which her estate agent recently described as ‘possibly one of the finest homes in the British Isles’.

The nine-bed pile boasts a games room, bar, home cinema, air-conditioned library, plus a ‘pool and spa complex which features two treatment rooms, a relaxing spa lounge, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, plunge pool, tropical spa, male and female changing rooms, tanning studio and state-of-the-art gym’.

Outside are 154 acres of gardens and grounds, taking in a tennis court, helipad and ‘amphitheatre’, plus a long carriage drive ending next to a bronze fountain where the 50-year-old Tory peer once posed for Hello! magazine with second husband Doug Barrowman, a billionaire six years her senior, next to a red Ferrari.

On the morning of Wednesday, April 27, a very different selection of vehicles could be seen crunching down the gravel leading to the Glasgow-born entrepreneur’s residence. It was a convoy of police cars, coming as part of an operation to execute simultaneous search warrants on four properties on the Isle of Man, plus another two in London, in raids that the local constabulary described as being ‘in support of’ an ongoing fraud investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

All six addresses have links to either Lady Mone — who was reportedly present at the house — or her husband. One is a Belgravia home she uses as her London base, while another is a Soho office to which several of their companies are registered.

A third is Knox House, an imposing office in the tax haven’s usually sleepy capital Douglas from which the couple conduct business.

Detectives are understood to have seized documents, computers, electronic equipment and mobile phones. No arrests were made, but it was reported that Lady Mone is likely to be interviewed about their contents.

Nicknamed ‘Baroness Bra’ after making her fortune in the lingerie trade, she famously used her maiden speech in Parliament, having been ennobled by David Cameron, to remind her ermine-clad colleagues: ‘I grew up in a tenement flat in the east end of Glasgow with no bath or shower and only a cupboard for a bedroom.’

Recent events have, however, seen her disappear from view. She last uttered a word in the Lords in March 2020 and has turned up to vote on just eight days in the past year. Her only public statements have been issued in writing by an aggressive law firm seeking — with, it must be said, mixed success — to curtail news coverage of her woes.

It seems that this Tory peer is demonstrably mixed up in dodgy deals but can afford a high-powered, high-priced legal team to obscure her tracks; they have not been entirely successful - hence the raids. There is a fascinating amount of detail so far known about her financial dealings and, interestingly, her personal life, which involved Rod Stewart’s wives, in the artcle.

5

Hi

Quite properly there are s number of investigations being undertaken into COVID Contracts.
Wether there was any criminality has yet to be proven
We needed the stuff quickly, normal tendering rules where suspended

6

The government’s use of a “VIP lane” to award contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) to two companies was unlawful, the High Court has ruled.

Campaigners claimed the VIP lane was reserved for referrals from MPs, ministers and senior officials and gave some companies an unfair advantage.

A judge ruled it was unlawful to give the two companies preferential treatment as part of the VIP lane.

Dodgy deals abound:

7

The new boss of a PPE firm linked to Tory peer Baroness Mone was censured as part of a tax investigation last year.

Arthur Lancaster’s appointment as director raises fresh questions about the roles of Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman in PPE Medpro. The couple have denied involvement in the company winning government contracts during the Covid pandemic.

It is being sued by the government for £122m plus costs for “breach of contract and unjust enrichment”.

The firm is now being run by Mr Lancaster, a long-time business partner of Mr Barrowman. Last year a company he led, AML Tax (UK) Limited, was fined £150,000 by a tax tribunal. HMRC, the UK’s tax authority, said the firm was part of Mr Barrowman’s Isle of Man-based Knox Group, and accused it of “aggressively” promoting tax avoidance schemes in the UK. The tribunal found the company had failed to comply with formal information notices as part of HMRC’s investigation.

It described Mr Lancaster’s evidence as “evasive” and said he displayed “a lack of candour”.

The fire in his pants was his downfall.