A Tory peer and lingerie tycoon is facing an official probe into her links to a firm that won Government PPE contracts worth £200million via an unlawful ‘VIP lane’.
Ultimo underwear founder Michelle Mone is being investigated by the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards over her relationship with PPE Medpro.
The lingerie tycoon – nicknamed ‘Baroness Bra’ – has faced increasing scrutiny for her ties to a company that last year won two contracts worth a combined £203 million to supply the NHS with face masks and surgical gowns.
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, Isle of Man-based billionaire Doug Barrowman.
Labour peer George Foulkes referred her to the commissioners last week. 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.
Source: The Dailymail