Michelle Mone, who used to be a member of the Conservative party, and her husband, Doug Barrowman, have now openly shared that he earned a lot of money, in the millions, from two deals related to personal protective equipment (PPE) during the Covid pandemic. This is the basic information leading up to the current situation.
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Who are Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman?
Mone, at the age of 52, gained popularity, especially in her home country of Scotland, for establishing the bra and lingerie company Ultimo alongside her first husband, Michael Mone. In 2015, she was chosen by David Cameron to be a member of the House of Lords as a representative of the Conservative Party.
Doug Barrowman, 58, runs the Knox Group, a financial services firm in the Isle of Man, a tax haven, that specialises in tax planning and wealth management.
The pair got married on the Isle of Man in November 2020 because they had to cancel their original wedding plans at Westminster’s St Mary Undercroft due to Covid restrictions.
What PPE deals were the couple involved in?
The Department of Health and Social Care gave a new company called PPE Medpro Ltd two contracts in May and June 2020. The first contract, valued at £80.85 million, was for providing 210 million face masks. The second contract was for supplying 25 million sterile surgical gowns, and the government paid £122 million for this. In total, these contracts added up to £203 million.
The contracts were processed via the “VIP lane”, which gave high priority and fast-tracked PPE offers from companies introduced by people with connections to the government.
What have the couple said previously about their involvement?
PPE Medpro seemed to be connected to Barrowman’s Knox group, but when the contracts were made public in the fall of 2020, and when the Guardian asked them about it, Mone and Barrowman strongly said they had nothing to do with it.
