Corruption
Tories’ disgraced PR firm resorts to paying others to augment their attacks
There is regrettably, no real surprise there but it is undertaken in such an overt and egregious way, that it is quite shocking. In this instance it is the Good Law Project under fire: Emails and a secret briefing document reveal a paid-for campaign to attack Good Law Project on social media. Influencers are asked... Read more
The Mone Scandal Shows New Laws Around Offshore Ownership Aren’t Working
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The furore around the Conservative Peer Michelle Mone and her concealment of involvement in a £203 million Covid contract shows that laws requiring offshore companies to list their beneficial owners are being ignored.
In 2022, the Register of Overseas Entities (ROE) came into force in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the Government pledging to “require anonymous foreign owners of UK property to reveal their real identities to ensure criminals cannot hide behind secretive chains of shell companies”. However, research by Byline Times shows that many companies that own property in the UK continue to obscure their real owners.
Held by Companies House, the ROE “requires overseas entities that own land or property in the UK to declare their beneficial owners and/or managing officers”, and promises “severe sanctions for those who do not comply”.
A beneficial owner is “any individual or entity that has significant influence or control over the overseas entity”. However, many businesses seem to be avoiding the new rules, with only 40% of offshore companies having registered by March 2023. LSE researchers revealed in September that “70 per cent of properties held via overseas shell companies (109,000 out of 152,000) still do not publish information about who really owns them”.
The new legislation is useful from a journalistic perspective because it allows us to check company records with publicly available information about who benefits from particular companies. Tory peer Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman are connected to a number of companies that don’t appear to list them as their ultimate owner.
COVID Cronyism and Mone – The Tip of the Iceberg: Byline Times’ Full Story of the PPE Cash Carousel
Byline Times has been unravelling the dealings behind the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the UK since the very early days of the pandemic. Here’s what we learnt – and what we still need answers to…
Josiah Mortimer
While PPE Medpro doesn’t seem to own property in the UK, it currently lists Arthur John Lancaster as its beneficial owner, who the website Tax Policy Associates says is “an accountant who is closely connected to Douglas Barrowman and the Knox Group. Lancaster was recently described by a tax tribunal as “seriously misleading”, “evasive” and “lacking in candor”.” Tax Policy states that if Barrowman intentionally hid his ownership of PPE Medpro, “then criminal offences were committed.”
Tax Policy Associates also reported this week that Barrowman and Mone hid their ownership of a house in Belgravia through two British Virgin Islands companies and a trust, none of which name them as the beneficial owners on Companies House.
Following their interview with the BBC, the broadcaster reported that “Mr Barrowman said that he had led the PPE Medpro consortium, even though he is not listed at Companies House as having any connection to the company. He told the BBC that he was, in effect, the ultimate beneficial owner of the firm”.
What about the Russian oligarchs whose activities in the UK were the reason for the introduction of the ROE legislation? The Cypriot website Philenews stated in February that “Only four Russian nationals under British Government sanctions appeared on the [ROE] register as of Thursday morning. They were: Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen; Russia’s former first deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife; and Alexander Frolov, the former chief executive officer of Evraz, a Russian steel and mining company.”
Bloomberg reported in February that the register revealed Frolov’s property in Knightsbridge and St George’s Hill in London
Oliver Bullough, author of the book Butler to the World, told Byline Times that wealthy oligarchs would generally not bother using shell companies in offshore jurisdictions like the Isle of Man, which is known as a location for registering private jets. Instead, they are more likely to use trusts to hide their ownership of UK property. While HMRC holds information on who the beneficiaries of trusts are, this information is not public.
However, it doesn’t seem that some Russian oligarchs with known property in the UK are abiding by the legislation either. Oleg Deripaska, for example, is known to own a property in Belgrave Square, whose registered owner according to the Land Registry is a company based in the British Virgin Islands, and not registered on Companies House.
Beechwood House in Hampstead, previously owned by sanctioned Uzbek-Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov, was reported to have been transferred to a trust in 2022 before he was hit with sanctions. The Land Registry title deed gives its owner as Hanley Ltd, a company that lists its beneficial owner as the Swiss based Pomerol Capital Sa, and its correspondence address as another Geneva company which is part of the Summit Group, “a leading independent provider of personalised fiduciary and administrative services”.
Usmanov's lawyers told Byline Times that he does not own Beechwood House, and that it was transferred to a trust in 2008, long before sanctions were imposed. He claims to no longer be a beneficiary of the trust as of 2022, and that the transfer of assets to the trust was done to benefit his relatives.
One offshore property owner who does seem to have complied with the legislation is Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. The Guardian revealed in 2020 that he had a £5 billion London property empire, and judging by the title deed to his Berkeley Square properties, the company which owns them, Berkeley Square Holdings Limited, does in fact register that its owner is the ‘Private Department Of The President Of Uae’.
EXCLUSIVE
Michelle Mone’s Lawyer Distances Himself from Baroness’ Claim She Lied to the Press on his Advice
A lawyer acting for the lawyer of Baroness Michelle Mone told Byline Times it would be defamatory to suggest David McKie ‘knowingly represented a false position’
Iain Overton
Besides oligarchs and oil sheikhs, property developers who own UK property through offshore companies also need to comply with the ROE legislation.
Byline Times has looked at dozens of companies based at the same address in the Isle of Man, many of which are linked to the property tycoon Asif Aziz and managed by the company Golfrate, which Aziz founded in 1991. The Times reported in 2020 that “Golfrate is run by Aziz's family and controls 900 properties”.
A number of companies registered here were reported by Private Eye in 2015 to be involved in buying up pubs in London and turning them into luxury apartments. Planning documents from 2023 show that Golfrate is still acting for companies registered in the Isle of Man, such as Hamna Wakaf Ltd. Many of the companies registered at the address list another offshore company, Circumference Fs (Cayman) Ltd as their owner.
In a recent House of Commons debate on the Register of Overseas Entities, Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, said, “Journalists have revealed that the family of Asif Aziz, a landlord to my constituents in Britannia Point, Colliers Wood, manages a large property portfolio registered under dozens of companies on the Isle of Man.” Britannia Point is owned by another company registered at the same Isle of Man address which also lists Circumference Fs (Cayman) Ltd as its ultimate beneficial owner.
Asif Aziz’s lawyers insist he has “never closed down a pub” and “is not the beneficial owner” of companies managed by Golfrate. Listing a Cayman Islands financial services company as the beneficial owner of another offshore company may not be against the Register of Overseas Entities rules, but raises the question about whether those rules themselves are effective.
Sunak’s Government is throwing out plans to get dirty money out of the UK
Josiah Mortimer
Analysis by BBC News and Transparency International in February suggested that “almost half of firms required to declare who is behind them failed to do so.” At that time, Transparency International said around 52,000 UK properties were still owned anonymously.
The Department for Business, responding to a Freedom of Information request sent by Byline Times, said “Companies House has begun enforcement against overseas entities that have either failed to register or have failed to provide their annual update on time. For the offence of failing to register, 3190 warning notices have been sent, which has brought a number of overseas entities into compliance, and 45 penalties to a total value of £2,100,000 have been issued so far (data as of 17 October 2023).” How much money has actually been collected in fines is unclear.
Although new reporting requirements have been introduced for companies where the Beneficial Owner is a trustee of a trust, LSE reported that “In an overwhelming 87 per cent of cases, where the researchers found that beneficial ownership information was missing or inaccessible to the public, it was due to deliberate choices by Government to keep the information out of scope of the legislation, rather than rule-breaking by overseas companies.”
A spokesperson from the Department for Business and Trade said, “The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will bear down on kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists who abuse our open economy, strengthening the UK's reputation as a place where legitimate business can thrive. We are committed to publishing a consultation before the end of the year on how to make trust information more transparent”.
Labour peer Lord Coaker, responding to the passage of the Economic Crime and Transparency Act, which tightens up reporting requirements for the ROE, said “The Bill is an important step forward, but the enforcement of it is everything. If laws that have been improved are not enforced, much of the debate and discussion we have had will not be as valuable as it should be.”
This article was updated on 25/12/23 with more information on Alisher Usmanov’s connection to Beechwood House
COVID Cronyism and Mone – The Tip of the Iceberg: Byline Times’ Full Story of the PPE Cash Carousel
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We still don’t have the full picture of the chaos of the COVID years – the billions wasted, the lives needlessly lost, and the decisions facilitated through WhatsApp messages that have mysteriously vanished.
But Byline Times has attempted to shed some light on the years of scandal, before the public inquiry got underway.
We hope our reporting stands as testament to the need for vigilant journalism, to shine a light on the murkiest days of the pandemic.
This is a snapshot of our reporting on the Coronavirus ‘cash carousel’ and what happens when cronyism seeps deep into British politics.
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The Crisis Begins
Within weeks of the first lockdown, Nafeez Ahmed on Byline Times became arguably the first journalist to break the story of the emerging personal protective equipment (PPE) scandal.
On April 2 2020, he exposed how lucrative contracts were being awarded to Conservative Party associates.
Boris Johnson’s Government had appointed a giant haulage firm with financial ties to the Tory Party to be in charge of a new supply channel for PPE to the NHS. Its founding executive chairman was Steven N. Parkin, a top Conservative Party donor who has attended exclusive ‘Leaders Group’ meetings and donated almost £1 million to the party in the preceding five years.
This set the tone for an extensive investigation into COVID-19 contracts, shedding light on a concerning trend of cronyism.
That May, Stephen Delahunty on Byline Times revealed that another Conservative donor was involved in the COVID-19 contracts.
Europa Worldwide Group – the managing director of which was a personal donor to Johnson – was found to be arranging PPE supplies for the NHS and manufacturing testing kits.
No one would begrudge firms being involved in ‘helping’ the emergency effort. But the lucrative profits secured off the back of many of these deals, often going to Conservative-linked figures, began raising eyebrows.
This newspaper continued – pretty much alone – in examining these contracts.
In July 2020, Delahunty revealed that companies with no prior experience or expertise were inexplicably receiving multi-million-pound contracts. This was despite the looming threat of legal challenges over what was to be dubbed the ‘VIP Lane’: pathways for firms to win government contracts with little oversight and through referrals from well-connected politicians.
EXCLUSIVE
Respected Health Professionals Feel ‘Duped’ into Appearing in Michelle Mone PPE Documentary
A film about the PPE scandal did not declare to some contributors it was being funded by a company that won £203 million in Government PPE contracts
Tom Latchem and Dan Evans
Brexit featured too. That same month, Stephen Komarnyckyj discovered that an award of a PPE contract to a company that had no cash stemmed from the UK choosing not to join the EU-wide PPE purchasing scheme.
In quick succession, we found that a recruitment firm with just £322 in net assets had received an £18 million Government contract. By this time, legal campaigners at Good Law Project were on the case. But their revelations and ours were still largely going unreported in the rest of the established media.
Three more contracts emerged in July, going to a fashion company, a trade consultant and a gambling company. It was beginning to look desperate – and fishy.
Using a legal loophole designed for emergencies, the Government was able to award these huge contracts without any competition. And, it seems, without even basic due diligence checks.
A New Phase
Things got even weirder that August, when Byline Times revealed the companies linked to the exclusive Plymouth Brethren religious sect which were mopping up huge COVID contracts. And still the warning signs kept flashing, as we dug up dormant firms which emerged from seemingly nowhere to win millions in PPE deals.
All these contracts could be justified if they were effective in saving lives. But in August 2020, we began to see the true picture: much of the PPE purchased at vast sums couldn’t actually be used. It wasn't up to scratch. Meanwhile, NHS staff continued to complain of shortages and shoddy equipment.
Labour MP Dawn Butler was among the first politicians to sound the alarm following our reporting. She told Byline Times that summer that the award of the new contracts to unheard-of firms was “yet another example of questionable procurement contracts” by the Government and that “the list seems to be growing day by day”.
“There is no competitive tendering and no transparency,” she added. “The full extent of this scandal must be brought to light, with full details published of all contracts, so this does not happen again. We all deserve to know how our public money is spent.”
Did ministers listen?
It seemed not. September came around, and Sam Bright reported that the Government spent more than £300 million on overalls for NHS staff – at a cost of £840 per bodysuit actually delivered.
EXCLUSIVE
‘VIP’ Firms Referred by Tory MPs and Peers for PPE Deals See Profits Soar
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been earned by companies channelled through the expedited procurement route by Conservative politicians, Sam Bright reports
Sam Bright
By this point, questions were being asked in Parliament. Our findings of the Government awarding £122 Million in PPE contracts to a one-month-old firm appeared to trigger probing at Prime Minister’s Questions.
At this point, we could piece together the picture from the first months of the pandemic – and it was not a pretty sight. Government spending on PPE deals to Conservative backers had hit £364 million.
And still, health professionals continued to call for adequate protection as the second Coronavirus wave approached.
Another Wave of Sleaze
In 2021, the COVID cash machine just kept giving – to a select few.
Pulling together a year of evidence, Byline Times and The Citizens revealed that deals worth at least £2 billion had been awarded to top Conservative Party associates during the Coronavirus crisis.
A firm that gave £400,000 to the Conservatives won a £93.8 million PPE deal. The figures being handed to the Plymouth Brethren sect alone hit £1.1 billion.
And, as before, vast amounts of the PPE were useless.
In what was dubbed “perhaps the most shameful episode of the pandemic”, £4 billion in PPE went up in smoke: burned as unusable, while NHS staff continued to feel burnt-out and abandoned.
Meanwhile, profits quadrupled for the Conservative donor companies. There was nothing stopping them continuing to donate more to the Conservative Party. Byline Times’ Peter Jukes dubbed it a “state-subsidised oligarchy” – a corporate takeover of government.
It was in this context that PPE Medpro – tipped to Michael Gove for a contract by Conservative peer Baroness Michelle Mone – could prosper.
Her representatives threatened to sue us for reporting the facts. Now the truth is finally out
Josiah Mortimer
This newspaper was the first to reveal Mone’s links to the firm – links which were vigorously denied under threat of libel action, but which we now know to have been true. (Mone and PPE Medpro are under investigation by the National Crime Agency but deny any illegality).
It was one of many companies that were referred by Conservative MPs and peers to the expedited ‘VIP Lane' for PPE contracts during the pandemic.
PPE Medpro took in the region of £60 million in profits. Much of its PPE was also deemed unusable by the NHS.
Overall, the value lost to dodgy PPE was nearly £9 billion – a quarter of the annual UK budget for housing and the environment put together.
Is there any other country in the world that has witnessed sleaze and scandal on such a scale around COVID contracts?
And did the £200 million-plus COVID 'bungs’ to the press – the Government's ‘All in, All Together’ public information campaign subsidising profitable newspapers – help Johnson's administration get away with it?
What We Know Now
A series of damning reports by the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and more have conclusively vindicated Byline Times’ reporting.
The Government lost billions of taxpayers’ money to dodgy contracts, waste and fraud, after suspending its usual procurement processes during the pandemic.
Johnson’s Government relied heavily on a highly secretive ‘VIP Lane’ for procurement of goods such as PPE, with £8.7 billion of public money wasted on buying unsatisfactory, unusable or overpriced PPE.
Subsequent Labour Party analysis showed that £3.5 billion of pandemic-related contracts were awarded to businesses that were directly linked to the Conservative Party or have donated to them.
To do this, the Government ignored fraud warnings and advice about the lack of basic checks on COVID support schemes.
Former Treasury Minister Lord Agnew described "schoolboy errors" and resigned from over his frustration at the lack of action on tackling COVID fraud. Kemi Badenoch has since criticised Rishi Sunak’s lack of interest in COVID fraud when he was Chancellor and claims he dismissed her concerns.
Boris Johnson’s Covid Inquiry Appearance Exposed the Complicity of his Accomplices
The Covid Inquiry has revealed the former PM to be a deeply negligent and dishonest individual. The only question now is how he was allowed to get away with it
Adam Bienkov
And so it wasn’t just about PPE: the trail of wasted cash ran through the Government’s COVID support schemes too.
The latest estimate for COVID-related fraud in Government support schemes is estimated to be to be £7.2 billion, according to House of Commons Library analysis of Government reports.
This includes fraud losses across business loan and grant schemes, and fraudulent use of the furlough and Rishi Sunak’s 'Eat Out to Help Out’ schemes – the latter of which is credited with triggering a surge in COVID cases in summer 2020. Taxpayer losses from COVID fraud could even reach as high as £10.8 billion.
Stronger checks on who was getting this money could have saved £2.6 billion – roughly equivalent to the total cash that went to Conservative allies.
According to internal documents from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), seen by Good Law Project, VIP Lane suppliers like PPE Medpro were paid on average 80% more per unit than other suppliers. Some contracts were agreed at more than four times the average unit price.
Even the ‘clean-up’ operation is costing a fortune.
The DHSC employed a 'commercial advisor' on 1 April 2022 at a rate of £1,100 a day to help its recently established 'contract dissolution team' extricate the department from the wasteful contracts signed with PPE suppliers.
With a total fee of £242,785 for 220 days work, only the Chief Executive of NHS England was set to be paid more by the DHSC this year, according to Labour.
What Happens Next?
The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee revealed that only 2% of COVID business grants lost to fraud has been recovered to date. Labour says that, if elected next year, it will pursue “every pound of public money” that has been inappropriately lost from pandemic related contacts, fraud and waste. Under the party’s plans, a COVID Corruption Commissioner would tackle the waste, fraud and dodgy contacts signed off by the Government during the pandemic.
Efforts at recovering the money are hampered by the fact that the UK is out of step with other countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, in having no offence of “fraud against the public purse” – except in relation to welfare and tax fraud.
But in the end, it’s not so much about the money, as the lives that would have been saved had Britain had well-stocked PPE supplies and proper checks on whether the supplies NHS workers were demanding were up to standard. Money can be clawed back. Lives cannot.
That baton is now held by the COVID Inquiry, which will begin its third module in the new year. Part of its remit is looking at how the spread of COVID-19 within healthcare settings was prevented – or not – including the adequacy of PPE.
Byline Times wishes it every luck in its digging – and for the hope that, one day, there might be some accountability for the cronyism and catastrophes of the Coronavirus pandemic, which, to date, has resulted in more than 230,000 people in the UK dying.
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Michelle Mone’s Lawyer Distances Himself from Baroness’ Claim She Lied to the Press on his Advice
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The drama surrounding the truth – and counter-truths – of Baroness Michelle Mone’s dealings with PPE Medpro, and the lucrative government contracts seemingly derived from her back-stage lobbying, took a further turn this week when her lawyer appeared to distance himself from her public comments.
Earlier this month, the BBC reported that Mone had made an "error" by lying to the press and not initially telling the media of her involvement with the company. Crucially, it reported that “she initially denied involvement due to legal advice”.
When Byline Times asked her lawyer, David McKie, if he was aware Mone was lying about not being connected to PPE Medpro, Mr McKie instructed his own solicitor.
The lawyer of the baroness’ lawyer said he has “never advanced a factual position on behalf of a client without being (i) aware of the basis therefor and (ii) instructed to do so”.
PPE Medpro, the company at the heart of this scandal, is being sued by the Government for £122 million plus costs for "breach of contract and unjust enrichment". It had supplied millions of pounds worth of personal protective equipment – much of which was found to be defective – to the Government during the pandemic.
Mone has said the Government knew about her involvement with the company. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated he is taking the issue "incredibly seriously".
Much of the scandal has focused on Mone’s denial to the press that she was linked to PPE Medpro.
Last May, Mr McKie was asked by Byline Times whether Mone was connected to PPE Medpro. He said to report as such would be defamatory.
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When this newspaper challenged this, Mr McKie replied: “Your email now appears to suggest that the ‘legal threats’ are without substance and that our correspondence is therefore without merit or justification. That is not only defamatory of our client, but of us and indeed of her previous agents. If you report that explicitly or by implication, it will be actionable.”
This month, in the wake of Mone’s admission that she had lied all along, Mr McKie appeared to contradict her claim that she did so on his advice.
His lawyers, Livingstone Brown, told Byline Times: “Mr McKie was engaged to act on behalf of Baroness Mone… It is in the nature of the work that solicitors do to represent factual propositions on behalf of clients. Solicitors are bound by their professional rules to act with honesty and integrity; at all times, he has done so.
"Any publication which asserted or implied that our client had knowingly represented a false position to you or any other third party would be defamatory, and hence actionable. It would also be materially inaccurate, and hence infringe clause 1 of the Editors’ Code.”
Election fever – ish
This three minutes or so comes with a warning of Dominic Cummings levels of swearing – but it is delightfully direct… Or as the producers, Juice Media put it: The British Government has made a tourism video ahead of the coming election, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative... Read more
Respected Health Professionals Feel ‘Duped’ into Appearing in Michelle Mone PPE Documentary
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A documentary film about PPE which includes an interview with former Conservative peer Michelle Mone has been accused of leaving respected health professionals feeling duped into appearing, Byline Times can reveal.
Ms Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, are facing criminal allegations as part of a long-running investigation by the National Crime Agency into their involvement with PPE Medpro, which secured government contracts worth more than £200 million - a connection first revealed on the Byline Times in September 2020.
PPE Medpro funded a film created by the award-winning producer and presenter, Mark Williams-Thomas, in which Mone admitted her “regret” in not publicly admitting links to the firm, but insisted “we've done nothing wrong”.
In a statement, Mr Williams-Thomas defended his journalism, saying he had not “set out to mislead anyone”, adding: “We have been totally upfront about who funded the programme.”
There is a credit at the end of the film, around 1hr and 11 mins into the documentary
However, this newspaper has spoken to two contributors who say they were never told the documentary was backed by PPE Medpro – and that had they known they would not have become involved.
Mr Williams-Thomas says that when these contributors were approached and filmed PPE Medpro were not involved.
Nadra Ahmed CBE, Chairman of the National Care Association, a not-for-profit which represents many of the care home providers that struggled to source PPE during the pandemic, told Byline Times “I was never told at any point who was funding the documentary... Had I known, there is no way I would have done it because I do not have any desire to get involved in somebody trying to clear their name over something I know nothing about.”
David Oliver, a former president of the Royal College of Physicians, said he felt “betrayed” after being approached on the basis he had been an outspoken critic of the government’s handling of the PPE crisis during the pandemic.
The doctor, who spoke in the documentary about losing five colleagues to Covid-19, said: “Nothing gave me any reason to think this was not an independent film about the government’s handling of PPE. Mark Williams-Thomas seemed to have a track record in his industry and, as someone who has done plenty of TV interviews, the set-up seemed professional.
“It wasn’t until after the documentary was broadcast, and friends who had watched it contacted me to say there was a credit saying the project had been funded by PPE Medpro, that I found out. I don’t like the idea that I was duped into adding an air of respectability and expertise to an attempt by Michelle Mone and PPE Medpro to salvage their reputation.”
EXCLUSIVE
Government Awards £122 Million PPE Contract to One-Month-Old Firm
New details of the procurement scandal emerge, after Boris Johnson is asked about the questionable awarding of Government contracts at Prime Minister’s Questions
Sam Bright
After discovering the film had been funded by PPE Medpro, Oliver emailed Williams-Thomas to “bollock” him. He said: “I confronted [him with] an email saying it was no way to treat professionals. I told him I felt betrayed.”
In a response to Oliver, which Byline Times has seen, Williams-Thomas said the project was originally going to be “22 video shorts about the issues around the supply of PPE during COVID, which were intended for release on Social Media and included interviews with suppliers… [but] all of the PPE suppliers turned down our invitation to appear in our programme.”
As such, he added: “It was sometime after we had filmed with you that we found out that only one PPE provider agreed to be interviewed, [so] it therefore made better editorial sense to change the format to a television documentary.”
Blaming the Screen Actors’ Guild strike and “other financial issues in the industry” for not having been able to get the documentary alternatively financed, Williams-Thomas went on: “The only way this programme was going to get finished was if somebody privately funded it.
“I talked it over with my team and decided to approach Doug [Barrowman]. Doug was quite hesitant, but after several meetings eventually agreed that PPE Medpro would fund it, but that we would keep full editorial control. So whilst the program was funded by PPE Medpro, the full editorial control and content of the programme was ours, and independent. This was really important because integrity is absolutely vital; we had full editorial control and in no way do I feel this has been undermined, and which is central to all of this.”
EXCLUSIVE
Legal Threats to Byline Times’ Reporting of the PPE Procurement Scandal
The Byline Intelligence Team reports on the legal threats from PPE Medpro, a firm awarded £200 million in Government PPE deals
Byline Intelligence Team
In the film, Williams-Thomas – who first came to public attention through his revelations about Jimmy Savile in 2012 – asked Mone whether she had “benefited in any way from PPE Medpro money either directly or indirectly”.
She replied: “Look, my husband’s an entrepreneur. There were many entrepreneurs involved in PPE, supplying PPE, and the consortium that he led supplied huge volumes at very competitive prices that saved the NHS tens of millions of pounds.
“What my husband decides to do after the event and who benefits from that is at his discretion. I am his wife and I may indirectly benefit, but that’s just like all other families around that are married. That’s just it, that is not my money. I don’t have that money, it’s not my money.”
Williams-Thomas also asked Mone whether she had “lied to the press” because she had denied involvement in PPE Medpro, which was “not true”.
She said: “I made an error in what I said to the press. I regret not saying to the press straight away: ‘Yes I am involved, and the government knew I was involved, and the emergency team, Cabinet team, knew I was involved, the government, [Department of Health and Social Care] knew that I was involved, the NHS, all of them knew I was involved.’ The legal team advised myself and my husband not to comment and not to say that of my involvement in PPE Medpro.”
In the documentary, which was released on YouTube on Sunday during the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and was described by Williams-Thomas on social media as a “WORLD EXCLUSIVE PROGRAMME”, he says that he had “complete access” to the “criminal case files” of Mone and Mr Barrowman.
It featured heavily redacted documents showing they have both been interviewed under caution regarding three criminal allegations.
“The NCA investigation into them both is in relation to allegations of conspiracy to defraud, fraud by false representation, and bribery, which they both categorically deny,” he added.
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The Guardian - which led on the story - has reported how Mone made an initial approach to ministers Michael Gove and Theodore Agnew on behalf of PPE Medpro in May 2020, offering to supply PPE and was awarded the newly formed company two contracts worth a total of £203m.
For years, Mone and Barrowman denied any involvement in PPE Medpro, via statements from their lawyers. When Byline Times first approached PPE Medpro about Mone its co-director likewise denied any links and stated "Our media lawyer Eddie is cc’d in above in case we need to take action against you."
However, last month the Guardian revealed that the couple had for the first time publicly accepted their involvement in the company. In April 2022, the NCA raided PPE Medpro’s offices along with Mone and Barrowman’s homes in London and the Isle of Man. In November 2022, the Guardian reported leaked documents from HSBC bank which showed Barrowman was paid at least £65m from PPE Medpro’s profits. He then transferred £29m to an offshore trust, of which Mone and her three adult children were beneficiaries.
Two weeks later, Mone took leave of absence from the House of Lords, which her spokesperson said was “to clear her name”.
Following the film’s release, she wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday: “If I’m being honest, the public probably sees me as a horrible person, a liar, or even a cheat. But I am none of those things. These last 2 years have taken a horrendous toll on me personally, and I want to clear my name.”
EXCLUSIVE
PPE Firm Subject to £122m Recovery Action from UK Government Has Only £4m in Assets
After £200m in Government COVID contracts, PPE Medro, associated with the Conservative peer Baroness Mone, appears to have few assets left
Stephen Delahunty
Williams-Thomas told Byline Times that the film was in two parts and that the two contributors featured in the PPE section, not in the interview with Mone and Barrowman.
“At no stage have we set out to mislead anyone, and to suggest so is not supported or evidenced," he told Byline Times: “The programme was absolutely NOT made to clear either Mone or Barrowman, but to investigate and show the case against them and to expose a very serious allegation against the DHSC. The programme features really strong journalism, but sadly for some journalists this has been missed or deliberately ignored, for other reasons and agendas.”
“We have been totally up-front about who funded the programme and as to why we went down that route, putting in place safeguards to ensure editorial control and as much independence as possible,” Williams-Thomas added.
Byline Times reached out to Mone for comment and will update this piece if we receive a response.
The Rwanda Bill’s denial of the truth is not a mistake: it is Tory policy
Kemi Badenoch is the Business Secretary.
She is also the minister for inequality.
And she is desperate to be the leader of the Tory party.
To prove herself fit for the last role, she is promoting her ability to ignore facts, and demand that otherwise do likewise. As the Guardian notes this morning:
A new front has emerged in the culture war as Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, condemned an academic study an MP described as “woke archaeology” that examined whether ethnicity was a risk factor with medieval plague.
The background, as they explain, is:
The paper, published in the journal Bioarchaeology International, examined the remains of 145 people buried at London plague cemeteries, 49 of whom died from the plague.
By examining five features of the skulls and comparing these with a forensic databank covering modern and historical global populations, it estimated the likely heritage of people who died and found that those of African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths.
The work found that those of "African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths." It also noted that the sample size was small.
In response, Badenoch has said that "the idea of structural racism being a factor in health outcomes, which she has previously rejected, could be damaging even 700 years later."
Three things stand out. The first is that ethnicity is a factor in health care. For example, I note this from a publication by Parliament on black maternal health (their title):
The UK has one of the lowest maternal mortality ratios in the world. There are, however, glaring and persistent disparities in outcomes for women depending on their ethnicity. Maternal mortality for Black women is currently almost four times higher than for White women. Significant disparities also exist for women of Asian and mixed ethnicity. These disparities have existed and been documented for at least 20 years, but only received mainstream attention and Government action since around 2018. Considerable credit for putting the issue on the political and public health agenda goes to campaigners, such as Five X More and Birthrights, who have worked to publicise the issue.
As a matter of fact, ethnicity is a factor in UK healthcare, and it looks very likely that structural racism has a significant role to play in that fact, based on the evidence.
Second, you cannot avoid that fact by denying the existence of structural racism, as Badenoch does, persistently.
Third, you cannot prevent people coming to the conclusion that structural racism has a role, based on the evidence, by telling them that this is not the case and that they must not make that claim, as Badenoch has done in this case by writing to the employer of the lead researcher to make a complaint.
Why note this?
Firstly, because Badenoch is in denial of the truth.
Secondly, because this is the logic of the Rwanda Bill being played out elsewhere. It is clear that the Tories are now going to say that problems that are very obviously real do not exist and keep repeating that until they get traction with the denial.
Third, this is a fascist propaganda methodology in action. Tell a lie. Repeat it often. Never waiver. Then, win acceptance of the untruth and make a basis for action.
All of which is profoundly worrying.
Sunak is going for the title of worst Tory leader this century
These three headlines paper next to each other in an FT newsletter this morning:
How did we reach such depths?
What is seemingly certain is that Sunak is now seeking to win the title as worst Tory leader of this century, now beating Truss by some way.
How long has Sunak got?
There is a headline in the Observer today that says:
It seems clear that large numbers of Tories have decided that Sunak’s Rwanda plan is either too extreme to be credible or not nearly extreme enough to pander to their prejudices, and either way it is lacking in support.
No wonder Sunak’s main line of argument for this plan is to say that Labour have no alternative and so they must support it. For reasons that stress hard to explain, he has pinned his hopes for his future in winning the support of the Opposition for a Bill that makes no sense to any right thinking person.
So, is Rishi doomed as soon as Tuesday?
I think what happens on Monday at the Covid inquiry might have a big impact on that. If he is eviscerated for ‘Eat out to help out’ - as he should be - and 20,000 deaths are laid at his door - as they should be - his chance’s of winning on Tuesday diminish considerably.
But I should add that according to the Mail this morning, the plan is to then bring back Boris Johns9on, aided and abetted by Farage. They do not seem to have noticed that neither is in parliament, but since when did a little thing like democracy get in the way of the Mail?