The bookies reckon Michelle Mone is likely to leave the House of Lords after her husband’s company was found to have breached a £122 million personal protective equipment contract with the government
On Wednesday, the High Court ordered PPE Medpro – a consortium led by Mone’s husband, Doug Barrowman – to repay £122m to the government after breaching a PPE contract during the Covid pandemic.
PPE Medpro to repay the full £122m, with interest, to the government by October 15, for supplying unsterile gowns to the Department of Health.
Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that PPE Medpro had breached their contract with the government, with the gowns not complying with a “validated sterilisation process.”
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Mone was appointed a Life Peer in 2015 but William Hill predict there is an 86% implied chance she will leave the House of Lords.
She is currently priced at 1/6 to either resign, be permanently expelled by a House of Lords vote, or be removed through an act of Parliament.
The Conservative Peer is also 6/4 to step down before the end of 2025.
Spokesperson for William Hill, Lee Phelps, said: “With calls for Michelle Mone to resign from the House of Lords following a recent court ruling, we think there’s a strong chance at 1/6 that she is stripped of her title as a Life Peer.
“However, Baroness Mone might not go down without a fight and could well still be in position next year, as we’re much longer odds at 6/4 about her resigning before the end of 2025.”
The dodgy equipment supplied by PPE Medpro became one of the biggest PPE scandals from the Covid pandemic. Mone had recommended the company to the government through the ‘VIP lane’, and initially denied having any links to her husband’s firm.
But in 2023, she admitted to the BBC that this was a lie, and revealed her and her children stood to gain from the profits of around £60m, which had been placed into a trust by her husband.
Mone insisted she had done nothing wrong aside from denying her links to the company though.
Following the ruling, she has claimed her and her husband have been scapegoated and made the “poster couple for the PPE scandal.”