Doug Barrowman, the husband of Baroness Michelle Mone, has claimed that he and his wife are being used as scapegoats to distract from the government’s incompetence in procuring personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic. Barrowman said in a written statement on Twitter that it “suits the agenda” of ministers to blame them for PPE Medpro, the company he owns which was awarded contracts worth over £200m to supply PPE to the NHS through a “VIP lane”.
The government is investigating PPE Medpro, which made profits of around £60m on the deals. The couple is being sued by the Department for Health and Social Care for £122m plus costs for “breach of contract and unjust enrichment”. Millions of gowns supplied to the NHS were never used, but the couple says they supplied them in line with the contract and that PPE Medpro will “rigorously” defend the claim.
Last month, Barrowman and Baroness Mone admitted lying about their involvement with PPE Medpro, having denied any involvement in the PPE deal for more than three years. In the statement, Barrowman said his family is being “treated as a punchbag” for the “lamentable failures” of ministers when procuring PPE and that they had received death threats and online abuse.
He called for Chris Wormald, the top civil servant at the DHSC, to resign, stating that no one had been held accountable for purchasing five years of PPE when the government was only supposed to have four months of stock. Barrowman also claimed that ministers were “using the arm of the NCA to threaten criminal proceedings unless we settle” the civil case and said that the DHSC’s claim had been made at a time of “increased scrutiny” on government spending on PPE procurement
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