Michelle Mone has 'no wish' to return as Tory in House of Lords

Baroness Michelle Mone has made it clear that she has no intention of returning to the House of Lords as a Conservative peer. This decision comes after Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for Mone to be stripped of her peerage following a scandal involving a firm she is associated with, PPE Medpro, which was ordered to repay £122m for breaching a Covid contract. Mone, a Scottish entrepreneur, expressed her disillusionment with the Conservative Party in a letter to Badenoch, stating she would not return assuming the party even exists before the next election. She was appointed as a peer by former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015 but went on a leave of absence and lost the Tory whip due to the PPE controversy.

In response to Mone’s position, the Conservative party announced in December 2023 that she was no longer a member. However, Mone disputed this claim, highlighting that she had not been formally removed from the party as of then. Despite the party’s stance, Mone made it clear in her letter to Badenoch that she had no desire to return to the Lords as a Conservative peer. Badenoch, along with other politicians like Chancellor Rachel Reeves, had demanded her to relinquish her peerage following the High Court’s ruling on the PPE Medpro case.

Badenoch stressed the importance of integrity within the Conservative Party, expressing that the removal of Mone was necessary to uphold the party’s values. She emphasized that politicians, regardless of their position in the Commons or the Lords, must adhere to high standards of conduct. Moreover, a party spokesperson reiterated that under Badenoch’s leadership, the Conservative Party expects its parliamentarians to maintain the utmost standards, standards which Baroness Mone was deemed to have fallen short of. The scandal surrounding Mone and PPE Medpro has raised concerns about political ethics and the reputation of public officials.

PPE Medpro, founded by a consortium led by Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman, had secured contracts to supply medical gowns to the NHS during the pandemic. However, the company failed to provide adequate evidence of proper sterilization, leading to the equipment being stored since 2020. Mone characterized the court’s decision as a government triumph in a case deemed too significant to lose, while a spokesperson for Barrowman denounced it as a miscarriage of justice. The issue has prompted discussions around whether peerages can be revoked by an act of Parliament, with calls from the SNP for the UK government to consider taking such action

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