Michelle Mone: who is Baroness, what did she say in BBC News PPE interview, Doug Barrowman - and net worth

Michael Gove is facing calls to appear before MPs to answer questions over PPE firm Medpro after Baroness Michelle Mone admitted she stands to benefit from a deal between the Government and the firm. The Cabinet minister, who was chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when the pandemic struck, was name-checked by Lady Mone in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged. The interview, on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, saw Lady Mone admit she did not tell the truth about her links to the PPE firm – while insisting that she and her husband have “no case to answer”. The company is currently being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA), while the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has since issued breach of contract proceedings over a 2020 deal on the supply of gowns.

Millions of gowns supplied by the company were never used by health services and the Department of Health is still seeking to claw back some of the money. Mone and her husband insist the gowns were supplied in accordance with the contract.

Lady Mone, who was appointed to the Lords by David Cameron in 2015, said she contacted Gove at the start of the pandemic following a “call to arms for all lords, baronesses, MPs, senior civil servants, to help, because they needed massive quantities of PPE”.

“I just said, ‘We can help, and we want to help.’ And he was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing’,” she added. Here is everything you need to know about it.

Who is Michelle Mone?

Baroness Michelle Mone is a Scottish entrepreneur and parliamentarian, who was born on 8 October 1971 and grew up in Glasgow’s East End.

Mone left school at the age of 15 without any qualifications; according to her book, Michelle Mone: My Fight to the Top, she was bullied at school because she was “terrible” academically.

At the age of 17, Mone met her future husband, Michael Mone, and converted to Catholicism for him. At the age of 18, she fell pregnant with their first child.

Mone and her husband married when she was 19 years old, and she went on to work for Labatt Brewing Company as a marketer. Within two years, she was promoted to the company's head of marketing in Scotland, but at the age of 24, was laid off. Mone has since admitted to lying about her qualifications on her CV to secure the job.

With the money she received from her redundancy, she went on to develop Ultimo, a lingerie company that specialised in creating bras that were both comfortable and attractive.

Mone was invited to join the board of directors for the Prince's Scottish Youth Commercial Trust by Prince Charles in 2001, and she was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2010 for her business achievements.

How many children does she have?

Mone and husband Michael, with whom she has three children, announced their divorce in 2011.

Mone proposed to businessman Douglas Barrowman in 2018, and the two were married on 29 November 2020. Borrowman is the father of four children from two previous marriages.

What is she accused of doing?

In late 2022, Tory peer Mone announced she was taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords to "clear her name" over claims concerning PPE contracts.

A statement released by her office said: “With immediate effect, Baroness Mone will be taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords in order to clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly levelled against her.”

According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the Conservative peer and her children secretly received £29 million from the profits of a PPE company that was awarded large government contracts after she recommended it to ministers.

Lady Mone's assistance helped PPE Medpro secure a spot in a "VIP lane" created by the government during the coronavirus pandemic to prioritise companies with political ties. It then won contracts worth more than £200 million.

The Guardian reported that tens of millions of pounds in PPE Medpro profits were later transferred to a secret offshore trust, the beneficiaries of which were Mone and her adult children.

The company was one of 51 that were processed through a government-run "VIP lane" designed to expedite businesses that had been recommended by politically connected persons.

Mone's lawyers responded at the time, saying the Guardian's findings were “grounded entirely on supposition and speculation and not based on accuracy.”

Mone's attorneys have responded to previous stories by saying that any indication of a relationship or cooperation between the Tory peer and PPE Medpro is "inaccurate", and that she was not involved in the company.

The interview, on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme on 17 December, saw Mone admitted she did not tell the truth about her links to the PPE firm – while insisting that she and her husband have “no case to answer”.

But she insisted that lying to the media is “not a crime”, and admitted she stands to benefit from a deal between the Government and the firm, which was awarded contracts worth more than £200 million to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.

She also conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the firm.

She admitted she is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60 million of profit from the deal, but said the couple have been made “scapegoats” for the Government’s wider failings over PPE.

What is her net worth?

Michelle Mone's net worth is unknown, however it is speculated to be in the range of £20 million or above. It's also worth noting that it's also reported that Baroness Mone and her three children gained £29m from the PPE contract.

According to one website listing Baroness or Lady Mone as a motivational speaker, her in-person speaking fees range from £20,000 to £25,000, and her virtual event speaking fees from £15,000 to £20,000.