Angus Cochrane Scotland News
PA MediaBaroness Michelle Mone should be stripped of her peerage for her role in a Covid contract scandal, the SNP have said.
A company linked to the Glaswegian entrepreneur has been ordered to repay £122m to the UK government for breaching an NHS contract.
PPE Medpro, which was set up by a consortium led by Mone’s husband, Doug Barrowman, was awarded lucrative deals to supply 25 million medical gowns during the pandemic.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn called on Labour ministers to remove her title through an act of parliament.
The UK government has welcomed the court ruling and vowed to recover the money from PPE Medpro.
A spokesman for Mr Barrowman, who is also from Glasgow, described the judgement a “whitewash”, while Mone said it required a “quantum leap of faith”.
The protective equipment PPE Medpro was contracted to supply has been in storage since 2020 after the company failed to prove it was correctly sterilised.
Mone – who recommended the company to the government through the “VIP lane” – initially denied being linked to the firm, but admitted to the in 2023 that she had lied about not being involved.
Her peerage can only be removed through an act of parliament, with SNP Westminster leader Flynn urging Labour ministers to take that step.
He told Scotland News: “This can’t be the end of the story. The public need to have that money returned to them.
“That money needs to be back in the public purse but most importantly there needs to be consequences
“Michelle Mone should not be in the House of Lords. The government can make sure that doesn’t happen and I will support them if they do that.”
Flynn added: “Is it ok that Michelle Mone continues to sit in the House of Lords, is it ok that she continues to make laws over all of our lives?
“I think the overwhelming view from the Scottish public will be no.”
Baroness Mone of Mayfair was given her title by then prime minister David Cameron in 2015. He also appointed Mone as his government’s “entrepreneurship tsar”.
The baroness was stripped of the Conservative whip following revelations about PPE Medpro and is on leave from the House of Lords.
‘Full force of the law’
A High Court judge ordered that PPE Medpro must pay back the £122m plus intertest to the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
DHSC minister Stephen Kinnock said that the money “needs to be paid back and that’s what’s going to happen”.
He added: “We have now got the full force of the law behind us.”
Mone described the court ruling as “nothing less than an establishment win for the government in a case that was too big to lose”.
A spokesman for Mr Barrowman said: “This judgment is a white wash 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.”
Legislation to remove peerages has not been introduced since 1917, when it was used to strip titles from “enemies” of the UK during World War One.
More recent legislation has created provisions for cancelling or suspending a person’s membership of the House of Lords, but only in certain circumstances such as when they have been convicted of a serious criminal offence.