Conservative peer Michelle Mone to take leave of absence from Lords

Tory peer Michelle Mone is to take a leave of absence from the Lords “to clear her name”, amid allegations she benefitted from a company she recommended for a Covid contract.

It means she will not attend sittings of the House, vote on any proceedings or be able to claim any allowance.

Baroness Mone has been linked to PPE Medpro, which won government contracts during the pandemic.

Her spokesman said the allegations had been “unjustly levelled against her”.

He said the leave of absence was “with immediate effect” and was Baroness Mone’s decision.

It also means she does not have to register any changes to her financial interests, although her request for a leave of absence could be refused by the Lords authorities.

A House of Lords spokesman said a decision would be made once a formal request had been received.

Baroness Mone has not voted in the Lords since April and has not spoken in a debate since March 2020.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “too weak” to remove the whip from Baroness Mone – which would mean she was expelled from the parliamentary party – and had left her “to finally read the writing on the wall”.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper also called for Mr Sunak to suspend the whip from Baroness Mone, adding: “This is more proof if any were needed that Sunak’s pledge of integrity has been reduced to dust.”

Downing Street would not comment on Baroness Mone’s decision because of an ongoing mediation process between PPE Medpro and the Department of Health.

A No 10 spokesman said it was a matter for the whips whether she should be expelled from the parliamentary Conservative party.

Between May and June 2020, PPE Medpro was awarded two government contracts worth £203m to supply masks and medical gowns.

Unusually, the company was only a few weeks old when it signed the first of these agreements.

In December 2020, BBC News reported that millions of medical gowns the firm supplied, worth £122m, had never been used.

PPE Medpro said at the time that it had delivered 100% of the contract to the terms specified and that it had supplied equipment “fully in accordance with the agreed contract, which included clear terms as to technical specification and performance criteria of the products”.

Glasgow-born businesswoman Baroness Mone, who joined the House of Lords in 2015, is being investigated by the Lords commissioner for standards over her “alleged involvement” in procuring contracts for the company.

However, the commissioner says he is unable to finalise or publish his report because “the matter is under investigation by the police or another agency as part of a criminal investigation”.

Properties linked to the company were searched by the National Crime Agency earlier this year.

Emails released under Freedom of Information laws show Baroness Mone referring the company to a government minister during the pandemic.

Last month, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner accused the government of a “total failure of due diligence” and a “conflict of interest” in awarding the contracts to PPE Medpro.

She was responding to an investigation in the Guardian based on leaked documents that alleged Baroness Mone had financially benefited from the company.

She told MPs it appeared “tens of millions of pounds” from the money awarded to the company “ended up in offshore accounts connected to the individuals involved”.

Baroness Mone has not responded to requests for comment on the latest allegations.

However, asked in December 2020 about reports she was linked to the company, her lawyers told BBC News she “had no role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro”.

It comes as Labour is trying to force ministers to release correspondence, documents and advice relating to government contracts awarded to PPE Medpro.

The party will present a motion calling for the documents to be published in a Commons debate later.

If the motion passes, the government would have to publish the documents, although they may argue they can be redacted for legal reasons or because of commercial sensitivity.

Conservative MPs are expected to abstain from the vote, which would allow the motion to pass.

Ms Rayner said ministers “must now set out clear timelines on when, where, and how this information will be released”.

The Department of Health said: “Due diligence was carried out on all companies that were referred to the department and every company was subjected to the same checks.

“We acted swiftly to procure PPE [personal protective equipment] at the height of the pandemic, competing in an overheated global market where demand massively outstripped supply.”

The department is currently in mediation with PPE Medpro over what it has described as an “underperforming contract” and said it was unable to comment on specifics.

Separately, Matt Hancock has accused Baroness Mone of being aggressive and threatening when trying to secure another government contract for Covid tests.

In his book, Pandemic Diaries, Mr Hancock claimed she had demanded “urgent help” to secure contracts in an email in June 2021, when he was health secretary.

Mr Hancock has not named the firm but the Daily Mail reported it was not PPE Medpro.

He said he was later told the tests had not won any contracts because they had not passed the standards required and he chose not to reply to the “extraordinarily aggressive email”.