Michelle Mone PPE firm ordered to pay £122m

A company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone has been ordered to pay out a multi-million sum to the government over Covid PPE.

Westminster’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) took pandemic-era supplier PPE Medro to court seeking the return of millions of pounds paid out for surgical gowns.

The department claimed the firm had failed to comply with rules to ensure the 25m gowns it sold to the government under a £122m contract were sterile.

The Chinese-manufactured gowns, which came under a June 2020 contract, were supposed to be used in the NHS.

However, an inspection in the September of that year saw them rejected.

A civil case heard that though they were labelled with a quality assurance mark which presented them as being compliant with European health safety standards, no authorised specialist organisation had certified their suitability for use.

At the High Court, judge Mrs Justice Cockerill said PPE Medpro had breached the contract.

A spokesperson for Mone's husband Doug Barrowman, who leads the PPE Medro consortium, called the verdict "a travesty of justice".

The statement said: "This judgment is a whitewash of the facts and shows that justice was being seen to be done, where the outcome was always certain for the DHSC and the government. This case was simply too big for the government to lose."

PPE Medro was one of many outfits awarded lucrative government contracts after referral through the controversial VIP lane, which saw ministers and other political figures pass on details for potential procurement deals.

Conservative peer Mone lobbied Michael Gove and Lord Agnew at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 to secure business for PPE Medpro, which is based in the Isle of Man. She took a leave of absence from the Lords in late 2022.

While she initially denied involvement with the firm or the contract, she was later revealed as the source of referral.

Mone and Barromwman denied wrongdoing and neither gave evidence in the case.

PPE Medro has been given until 4pm on October 15 to repay the sum. 

Ahead of the ruling, it filed a "notice of appointment to appoint an administrator".

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said his department will work with administrators "to recover everything we can".

He said PPE Medpro "put NHS staff and patients in danger with substandard kit whilst lining their own pockets with taxpayers' money at a time of national crisis", adding: "Today's court ruling makes clear we won't stand for it and we're coming after every penny owed to our NHS.

"This government will ruthlessly pursue any company which tried to exploit the pandemic for their own ends while our health service was fighting to save lives."