Alleged Criminality in Peer-Related Contracts Probed Behind Closed Doors at COVID Inquiry

Module examining contract procurement of PPE has begun but potentially incriminating evidence related to Baroness Michelle Mone will be heard in private.

Baroness Michelle Mone is sworn in as a member of the House of Lords in an undated file photo. PA

Potentially incriminating evidence relating to the PPE firm linked to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband will be heard in a private, closed session of the UK Covid-19 inquiry, it was confirmed as the module examining contract procurement began.

On Monday, the inquiry began four weeks of scrutiny of government decisions to purchase personal protective equipment and the use of the so-called “VIP lane” that gave priority to companies with connections, which was previously ruled unlawful by the High Court.

However, inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett announced in preliminary hearings for the latest module that there would be a risk of prejudice to potential criminal proceedings if “sensitive evidence” was heard in public.

Opening the latest round of hearings on Monday, Hallett said: “It is not my role, and indeed I am forbidden by the Inquiries Act, to attribute civil or criminal liability to any individual or company.

“I am aware that there are criminal or civil investigations into some of the matters that will be touched upon by this module, and in one case [related to Mone] I have agreed that some evidence will be heard with special restrictions applying to make sure I can hear the evidence without prejudicing any possible criminal investigation.

“The information that I receive [in the closed session] will become public as soon as any criminal investigations are resolved.”

The inquiry heard this week that the government’s 2019 expenditure on PPE had been £146 million, which was just 1 percent of the 2020 cost. In total, the government spent £14.9 billion on PPE between January 2020 and June 2022, plus a further £26 billion on track and trace measures and £700 million on ventilators.

NCA Investigation

Conservative peer Mone, 52, and her husband Doug Barrowman, 59, have faced several years of questions over the priority lane contracts granted to some suppliers during the era of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.

PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Barrowman, was awarded contracts by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) worth more than £200 million to supply PPE after Mone, a Glasgow-born entrepreneur who made her name initially in the lingerie business, recommended it to ministers.

The company was established in May 2020, two months into the first lockdown.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) launched an investigation into the firm in May 2021 over suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement process.

In January 2025, assets worth around £75 million linked to Mone and Barrowman were frozen as part of the agency’s investigation into PPE Medpro.

In its submission to the inquiry, the NCA said there was a “realistic possibility that criminal charges against one or more individuals will flow from the investigation.”

The agency initially sought to prevent the inquiry hearing any evidence about the company, later requesting that 26 witness statements collected by its staff be withheld.

It also argued for an order to be imposed which would prevent certain questions about PPE Medpro from being asked in a public session of the inquiry, which is likely to become the most expensive legal probe in UK history.

The NCA said the restrictions should include the identity of any person under investigation and evidence relating to the opinion of government officials concerning the company’s contracts.

The agency also called for restrictions to cover evidence of payments to the firm and the names of those who potentially benefited from them.

In June 2024, the NCA said that an unnamed 46-year-old man from Barnet, north London, had been arrested as part of its investigation into Medpro. No criminal charges have so far been announced against this individual.

Former UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock is seen outside 10 Downing Street in London, on Feb. 15, 2021. I T S/Shutterstock

Media Outlets’ Objections

But media outlets and groups representing the COVID-19 bereaved argued that the dangers of prejudicing criminal proceedings were being exaggerated because of the early stage of the police investigation and the amount of information already in the public domain.

The DHSC also asked for the terms of any restriction order to be broadened to include any “financial material and correspondence” relating to the purchase of PPE from the company. This request was rejected by Hallett.

Questions have been asked of those who were senior government ministers at the time of the lockdowns, including former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and former Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.

Anti-Corruption Coalition

The UK Anti-Corruption Coalition (ACC) has criticised the VIP lane as a method that may have allowed ministers’ associates to obtain contracts improperly.

Giving evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, Daniel Bruce of the ACC said the organisation had submitted a number of Freedom of Information requests as well as using the government’s publicly available contract finder database to uncover potential corruption, as well as examining the EU-wide procurement system.

In response to the World Health Organisation declaring a pandemic and the March 2020 global lockdowns, the government began rapidly placing contracts without the usual competitive tendering process. Under the Boris Johnson administration, medical professionals and organisations frequently reported that there was a shortage of PPE, which was said by the authorities to be vital in “stopping the spread” of COVID-19.

Bruce told the inquiry that his organisation would challenge the prevailing narrative that much of which had gone wrong with the procurement of contracts was down to a need to “cut corners” because of the claimed emergency situation.

“One of the reasons I contest that narrative is because so much of what we have found between us spanned months and months ... well into 2022, with a tail end of data going into 2023, and compared to our peer countries, on matters of transparency, on matters of spend, on matters of how long emergency direct procurement was being used, the UK found itself as an outlier.”

Boxes of PPE are discarded on an area of land near Testwood Lakes nature reserve in Calmore, England, on June 19, 2023. The stacks of boxes are thought to include unused aprons and masks procured during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

£5 Billion Worth of Unpublished Contracts

Bruce was asked by the counsel to the inquiry whether it was his view that the government had allowed the “emergency” to continue for longer than necessary.

He replied that it was “a matter of fact” that emergency procurement exemptions were used for a “considerably long period of time,” and that this was one of the “red flags” his organisation had identified, but this was intertwined with issues of transparency.

“The failure to publish contracts was a sustained problem for the entirety of our sample period, and to this day, there remain £5 billion of unpublished contracts for PPE and other supplies five years after the pandemic struck,” Bruce said.

Hallett said she had read the “closed” evidence provided by the NCA, and told the preliminary hearing, held in late February: “There is clearly sensitive material obtained by the inquiry in its Module 5 investigation into Medpro which is not in the public domain and to publish it would, in my view, aggravate rather than ameliorate the risk of harm or damage to any possible criminal trial.

“I have considered the request which DHSC makes to widen the scope of any order but, given the expertise of the NCA as to the risk to its investigation, am satisfied that it is appropriately drawn and focused on the criminal investigation.”

Hallett said she would impose a time limit on how long proceedings remain closed to achieve a balance between “open justice and limiting the risks identified by the NCA.”

The restrictions allow for representatives of five media organisations to be invited to attend the closed hearing, expected to take place in late March, but they will be unable to report on the proceedings until the conclusion of any criminal case, including possible appeals.

‘Behind the Masks’

Research by Transparency International UK, part of the ACC, suggests there are serious questions to be answered about the nature of 135 contracts awarded during the COVID-19 era, worth a combined total of £15.3 billion.

Its report “Behind the Masks” says that the organisation found 135 “high-risk” COVID-19 contracts with three or more corruption “red flags,” totalling £15.3 billion, whose awards merit further investigation.

The group, which describes itself as “a non-governmental, anti-corruption agency,” points to at least 28 contracts, worth a total of £4.1 billion, which went to organisations with close connections at Westminster, particularly to the Conservative Party.

Module 5 hearings will continue until the end of March.