{"id":245999,"date":"2025-11-05T21:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T21:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245999\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T21:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T21:04:07","slug":"company-linked-to-michelle-mone-owes-39m-in-unpaid-taxes-michelle-mone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245999\/","title":{"rendered":"Company linked to Michelle Mone owes \u00a339m in unpaid taxes | Michelle Mone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The firm linked to the former Conservative peer Michelle Mone<\/a> that was found last month to have supplied unusable personal protective equipment during the pandemic owes \u00a339m in unpaid taxes, according to company documents.<\/p>\n

PPE Medpro, owned by Mone\u2019s husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman, was put into administration on 30 September, the day before the high court judgment was made public.<\/p>\n

Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that the company had breached its contract with the Department of Health and Social Care, awarded in June 2020, to supply 25m sterile surgical gowns, and must repay the full \u00a3122m<\/a> it received.<\/p>\n

A preliminary statement by the administrators<\/a> Forvis Mazars, filed at Companies House dated 30 October, put the total owed to the DHSC at \u00a3148m because the court judgment imposed interest on the \u00a3122m from late 2020 when the gowns were rejected. Further interest is now accumulating at an annual rate of 8%, the DHSC has said.<\/p>\n

The list of creditors in the administrators\u2019 document also includes HMRC, stated to be owed \u00a339m. Given the confidentiality observed by HMRC over individuals\u2019 and companies\u2019 tax affairs, this is the first time it has been made public that PPE Medpro faces a demand on this scale for unpaid tax.<\/p>\n

The administrators did not explain the nature of the unpaid tax, although it appears to be corporation tax due on PPE Medpro\u2019s profits as the document also states that no money is owed for employees\u2019 PAYE, national insurance contributions or VAT.<\/p>\n

The total debts of the company are put at \u00a3188m, comprising the \u00a3148m owed to the DHSC, the \u00a339m in unpaid tax, \u00a3207,000 owed to Grosvenor Law, the company\u2019s lawyers in the recent court battle with the DHSC, and \u00a31m owed to the Isle of Man entity linked to Barrowman that put the company into administration.<\/p>\n

The administrators have not provided details about PPE Medpro\u2019s government contracts or where its profits have gone, but the document states: \u201cA review of the company\u2019s bank statements reflects a small number of entities that have received the vast majority of funds from the company\u2019s bank accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DHSC awarded the \u00a3122m gowns contract to PPE Medpro, and another worth \u00a380m for face masks \u2013 a total of \u00a3203m \u2013 after Mone first approached Michael Gove<\/a>, the then Cabinet Office minister, in May 2020.<\/p>\n

The contracts were processed via the \u201cVIP lane\u201d operated by Boris Johnson\u2019s Conservative government during the pandemic, which gave high priority to people with political connections. Mone was appointed a Conservative member of the House of Lords by David Cameron in 2015.<\/p>\n

She and Barrowman denied through their lawyers<\/a> for years that they were involved in PPE Medpro, in response to questions from the Guardian and evidence that they were involved. In November 2022, the Guardian revealed that Barrowman had been paid at least \u00a365m<\/a> from PPE Medpro\u2019s profits, then transferred \u00a329m to an offshore trust set up to benefit Mone and her three adult children.<\/p>\n

The DHSC sued the company<\/a> in December 2022, following public and political outcry after the Guardian\u2019s reporting. After a 12-day trial at the high court\u2019s Rolls Building in the summer, Cockerill concluded that PPE Medpro had not complied with the legal and regulatory requirements to ensure that the gowns, made in China, were certified and validated to be sterile.<\/p>\n

In December 2023, Mone admitted<\/a> in a BBC interview that the couple had lied to the media, and the couple confirmed their involvement in the company. Barrowman acknowledged he had been paid \u00a360m and transferred money into the trust; the couple said his children were beneficiaries as well.<\/p>\n

After the company missed a 15 October deadline<\/a> to repay the money, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, said: \u201cWe will pursue PPE Medpro with everything we\u2019ve got to get these funds back where they belong \u2013 in our NHS.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the government faces legal obstacles if it is to get any money back<\/a>, as no funds were left in the company and it is in administration.<\/p>\n

The administrators\u2019 statement makes clear that they do envisage being able to ultimately recover money, and may make legal claims against unnamed \u201cthird parties\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The firm linked to the former Conservative peer Michelle Mone that was found last month to have supplied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-245999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}