A Labour peer has demanded the National Crime Agency “pull the finger out” over their probe into a PPE firm linked to Michelle Mone. George Foulkes said the ongoing police investigation is delaying the publication of a separate House of Lords report into the scandal-hit tycoon.
Foulkes, who lodged the complaint to Westminster authorities against the bra tycoon, also called for Mone to be stripped of her peerage.
Baroness Mone, who was born in Glasgow, initially denied involvement in the PPE Medpro firm that was awarded £203m in covid contracts. She later admitted lying and it was shown Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, who led the firm, stood to benefit to the tune of tens of millions of pounds.
Mone had recommended PPE Medro to the Tory Government and the firm was referred to the so-called “VIP lane”.
The NCA is probing PPE Medpro and the Lords has also investigated claims Mone did not register her links to the firm.
Foulkes, a Scottish Labour veteran, is unhappy the ongoing NCA probe is stopping the Lords report from being published. He said of the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards: “I think they are generally frustrated at the delay and I’m equally frustrated at the delay. The National Crime Agency seem to be taking a very long time to deal with it.
“I have been disappointed at the time taken.
“It does seem that the NCA has not been as effective in dealing with financial irregularities as they are with drug smuggling and any other major crime.”
The former Labour MP and MSP said he had a message to the NCA: “Pull the finger out and get on with it.” He said of his complaint: “I had been concerned ever since the covid pandemic about the way in which the VIP lane had operated.”
“My complaint was on the basis she had not notified the registrar of her interest in the PPE Medro company and it was on that basis that I wrote to the Commissioner.”
Mone was appointed to the Lords by former Tory Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015 and she is currently on a leave of absence from the second chamber.
Foulkes said people like Mone had damaged the reputation of the Lords and claimed her attendance record was poor before the PPE scandal: “The House of Lords is rightly open to a lot of criticism, the way a number of people have been appointed.”
“You would expect people appointed [would] take some responsibility and turn up and participate. Unfortunately some people just treat it as an honour, like they’re one above a knighthood.”
Foulkes said her initial appointment to the Lords had been “farcical”, insisted she had brought the House into “disrepute” and called for her to lose her title. The NCA investigates serious and organised crime.
Asked about lying to the press, Mone told the BBC: “Saying to the press, ‘I’m not involved’, to protect my family, can I just make this clear, it’s not a crime … I was protecting my family.”
It was revealed last year that assets controlled by Mone and her husband had been frozen under a court order obtained by the Crown Prosecution Service. In June last year, a 46-year-old man was arrested as part of the NCA investigation into PPE Medpro.
An NCA spokesman said: “The NCA opened an investigation in May 2021 into suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro. This ongoing investigation remains a priority for the agency. Investigations must pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry. In serious economic crime investigations these lines of enquiry can be incredibly complex – from worldwide financial tracing exercises to the need to examine large volumes of digital material. In such cases it can take considerable time to ensure that a thorough, independent and objective investigation is conducted.”
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