Who is Michelle Mone? The businesswoman from Glasgow's East End taking a break from the House of Lords

Lady Michelle Mone, a Tory peer, has been lauded in the past as a success story - celebrated as a British female entrepreneur.

She now faces huge controversy over her alleged links to a firm, PPE Medpro, awarded a PPE contract during the Covid pandemic.

We look at the woman behind the latest headlines.

Michelle (51) was born in Glasgow and she left school at the age of 15 with no qualifications to pursue a modelling career. She met her first husband, Michael Mone, when she was just 17 – she was called Michelle Allan at the time.

They were expecting their first child together when Michelle was just 18 and they had three children together during their 20-year marriage. They divorced in 2011 with a bitter battle for the Ultimo business that had made their fortune.

Michelle came up with the idea for the Ultimo bra, the brand's first product, when she was wearing an uncomfortable cleavage-enhancing bra one day and believed she could create a more comfortable version.

Mone had read about a new silicone product while on holiday in Florida and approached the company to obtain its European licence to produce bras.

Michelle was brought up in a tenement in the tough east end of Glasgow, and her early life was hit with tragedy when her younger brother passed away and her mother lost her job.

Compelled to contribute to the family income, she immediately showed she was not short of ingenuity.

Michelle once told an audience at a Manchester conference in 2009: “I started a paper round delivering the Evening Times and the Daily Record. By the time I was 11, I had 17 teenagers working for me.

Michelle then became the most successful Avon sales agent in Glasgow after forging her mum’s signature because she was too young to work for the company.

After leaving school at 15, she had a two-year spell as a model before she took a job as an administrative assistant for brewers Labatt’s.

Michelle said: “I ripped up my contract which said my working hours were nine to five, and I worked my socks off.

But another set back was on the horizon, and Michelle was made redundant aged 24.

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That proved to be her biggest opportunity yet, as an evening out wearing an uncomfortable bra inspired her to create a new one.

She invested her redundancy pay-out in developing her product, but three years down the line Michelle was still some way from success.

Eventually the first Ultimo prototype was developed, but Michelle was £420,000 in the red and still had to get it into the shops.

She said: “My philosophy has always been don’t think small because small things will happen, so I decided to target Selfridges.”

With cash-flow still an issue, Michelle was left with another problem – how to publicise her new product with a marketing budget of just £500.

She said: “I hired 12 actors and dressed them as plastic surgeons and gave them banners saying ‘Ban the Ultimo bra because it is putting us out of work’ and got them to protest outside the store.

“I was hoping and praying it would work. When I was driving to the launch up Oxford Street the taxi driver said the street was blocked with people.

“The place was swarming with photographers and it was known as the biggest bra launch in Europe.”

Targeting one of the biggest retailers at the time and with a mock protest for a media hit proved to be a genius idea. The London branch of Selfridges on Oxford Street sold out six months’ worth of stock in three hours.

Prime minister, David Cameron, announced in 2015 a list of new creations of life peers, including Mone. Her inclusion drew criticism from other business leaders. Some Conservatives questioned her suitability for the House of Lords.

When announcing that she had sold most of her stake in Ultimo, she confirmed she had taken 100% control of Ubeauty Global, consisting of the assets of Ultimo Beauty which she sold in 2017.

In October 2020, it was revealed that PPE Medpro, a company led by Anthony Page, a business associate of Mone and her second husband Doug Barrowman, had been awarded a contract for £122 million to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In November 2022, it was revealed that she had received £29 million in payments from PPE Medpro to a secret offshore HSBC trust fund, of which she and her adult children were the beneficiaries. Her lawyer had previously claimed she did not declare PPE Medpro in the House of Lords register of financial interests because “Baroness Mone did not declare any interest as she did not benefit financially and was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity.”

It was announced by PA Media on Tuesday 6 December 2022 that Lady Mone is to take a leave of absence from the House of Lords with immediate effect.