British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he was “shocked” by allegations that a Conservative peer has profited from COVID-19 contracts awarded during the pandemic.
Baroness Michele Mone took a leave of absence from the House of Lords on Dec. 6 after being accused of having profited personally from PPE Medpro, a firm which won contracts worth £200 million ($244 million) in personal protective equipment (PPE).
According to UK media reports, Mone had recommended the firm to ministers at the beginning of the pandemic. A report in The Guardian newspaper accused the peer and her children of secretly receiving £29 million ($35 million) originating from the profits of the PPE firm.
But Lady Mone has consistently denied any “role or function” in the company, and her lawyers have previously said she is “not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity.”
At Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Dec. 7, Sunak said: “Like everyone else I was absolutely shocked to read about the allegations. It’s absolutely right that she is no longer attending the House of Lords and therefore no longer has the Conservative whip.”
After Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer asked him how the Tory peer allegedly got millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in her bank account, Sunak said that Starmer “should know there is a process in place.”
‘Unjustly Levelled’
Mone’s office said on Dec. 6 that she intended to take a leave of absence from the House of Lords to “clear her name.”A statement released by her office said: “With immediate effect, Baroness Mone will be taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords in order to clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly levelled against her.”
A spokesman for the House of Lords later confirmed her leave of absence, saying it would be “effective immediately.”
It means Mone, who was made a life peer by then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015 after selling an 80 percent stake in her Ultimo lingerie company, will no longer attend sittings of the House, vote on any proceedings, and will not be able to claim any allowance.
Downing Street said her decision meant she automatically lost the Tory whip.
The prime minister’s press secretary said: “She’s taken a leave of absence therefore, by default, she has not got the Conservative whip any more.”
The standards watchdog in the House of Lords is investigating Mone over her alleged involvement in procuring contracts for PPE Medpro, though this has been paused “while the matter is under investigation by the police or another agency as part of a criminal investigation.”
‘Too Weak’
Labour presented a humble address motion on Dec. 6, which required the details of the relevant contracts and contacts with the government to be handed to the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons.The binding motion passed the House of Commons unopposed, which means the government is now set to release records relating to the award of the contracts to PPE Medpro during the pandemic.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said: “The Tories are all out of excuses. Ministers must now set out clear timelines on when, where, and how this information will be released. They can’t keep taking the public for fools by refusing to come clean on what they knew about this dodgy deal.”
Opposition parties have also criticised the prime minister for not having acted against the high-profile peer.
Rayner said: “Rishi Sunak was too weak to remove the whip and has left it to Baroness Mone to finally read the writing on the wall.”
‘VIP Lanes’
The government has come under fire for the use of “VIP lanes” to procure PPE, whereby preferential treatment for public contracts can be given to organisations recommended by MPs and peers.Asking an urgent question about the case in the Commons on Nov. 24, Rayner hit out at a “total failure of due diligence” and “a conflict of interest at the heart of government procurement.”
She added: “There are rightly separate investigations into Baroness Mone’s conduct, but the questions this case raises are far wider.”
She said the Conservative government “has written off £10 billion ($12 billion) alone in PPE that was deemed unfit for use.”
“Ministers appear to have learned no lessons and have no shame. As families struggle to make ends meet, taxpayers will spend £700,000 ($855,000) a day on the storage of inadequate PPE.”
Downing Street responded by stressing the VIP lane “was set up at a time of significant global competition for PPE.”
The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Suppliers and individuals were rightly passing on offers of support directly to their local MPs, to healthcare professionals, to civil servants, to ensure we’ve got that PPE to the frontline health care professionals.”
Being referred to the high-priority lane “was emphatically not a guarantee of a contract and indeed, nearly 90 percent of offers referred through the route were unsuccessful,” the spokesman said.
