A director of the PPE firm which is under investigation over its links to Tory peer and lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone has suddenly left the company.
Voirrey Coole, 40, had been an officer with PPE Medpro since it was formed on May 12, 2020.
That same month Lady Mone – who has strenuously denied any association with the company – recommended it to the Cabinet Office as a potential supplier.
The firm went on to win contracts worth £203million to supply the NHS with face masks and surgical gowns.
In January Labour peer George Foulkes referred Lady Mone – who is married to Isle of Man-based billionaire Doug Barrowman – to the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards over PPE Medpro.
They confirmed she would be investigated and it is understood the probe would look closely at any connections she and her husband had to PPE Medpro’s directors Anthony Page and Ms Coole.
Yesterday papers seen by MailOnline announced Ms Coole – another Isle of Man resident – had left the firm.
The company filings announced her appointment had been terminated, but her own listing declared her as having resigned.
Neither PPE Medpro, Ms Coole or lawyers for Lady Mone responded to MailOnline over the change in personnel or the reason for it.
The businesswoman, 50, has not posted on her Twitter feed for nearly four months – the last time on January 7 saying ‘I love to put on makeup to feel my best-self’.
Lady Mone has repeatedly denied any association with the company, which she recommended to the Cabinet Office as a potential supplier in May 2020.
Although she has no actual formal connections with the company, her denials have come under scrutiny thanks to publicly documented connections between Anthony Page, PPE Medpro’s owner, and businesses run by Lady Mone and her husband Mr Barrowman.
Labour peer George Foulkes referred her to the commissioners in January earlier this year.
They have have now confirmed she is being investigated under several sections of the Lords’ code of conduct, including a section saying peers ‘must never accept or agree to accept any financial inducement as an incentive or reward for exercising parliamentary influence’.
She is also being investigated under as section of the code saying peers ‘must not seek by parliamentary means to confer exclusive benefit on an outside body or person (a) in which he or she has a financial interest (including by way of salary, fees, shareholding or other arrangement) or (b) in return for payment or reward’.
Lord Foulkes said Lady Mone had failed to fully disclose her business interests in PPE Medpro and asked the commissioners to investigate whether she had breached the rules against lobbying when she referred the firm to the Government.
Mr Page, the sole owner of PPE Medpro, is a wealth management expert who works for Barrowman’s Knox House Trust, part of the Knox Group of companies based on the Isle of Man, where Lady Mone and her husband live on a £25 million estate.
In December The Mail on Sunday revealed Mr Page is the director of a firm that owns a luxury yacht, called Lady M, on which Lady Mone sailed around the Adriatic last summer.
Mr Page is also the majority shareholder of Lady Mone’s new business venture Neo Space, which operates spaces for rent in Aberdeen.
Lady Mone founded lingerie brand Ultimo through parent company MJM International in 1996.
She was made a life peer by David Cameron in 2015.
Millions of the medical gowns bought by the NHS from PPE Medpro were never even used.
At the time they had to reach the British Standard for the sterilisation of medical devices or what was called a ‘technical equivalent’.
If the equivalent was the standard aimed for, health regulator the MHRA had to approve them.
It publishes lists of current products that had been given its authorisation to be used.
