Michelle Mone takes leave of absence from Lords amid PPE controversy
Under fire Baroness Michelle Mone has taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords in the wake of a controversy involving PPE contracts.
Mone is at the centre of a controversy involving the awarding of £200m of PPE contracts that were awarded to a firm linked with the Conservative-affiliated life peer.
A spokesperson for Mone said she was taking leave to “clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly levelled against her”.
PPE Medro was given government contracts to make surgical gowns and masks throughout the pandemic, after Mone allegedly lobbied ministers on the firm’s behalf.
There are now claims that she personally profited from the contracts, however her lawyers say Mone “had no role or function in PPE Medpro”.
Ex-health secretary Matt Hancock said in his new book that Mone “sent me an extraordinarily aggressive email complaining that a company she’s helping isn’t getting the multi-million-pound contracts it deserves”.
She is under investigation by the House of Lords’ standards commissioner for “alleged involvement in procuring contracts for PPE Medpro leading to potential breaches…of the House of Lords code of conduct”.
Labour is publishing a motion in parliament to try and get the government to disclose the documents relating to the contracts.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Tory MPs can either back Labour’s binding vote to force ministers to come clean on the murky award of £203m in taxpayers’ money to a shady company linked to a Tory peer, or they are choosing to be complicit in a cover-up.”