Michelle Mone should be stripped of peerage, says Badenoch

Mone dismissed the court ruling as "an establishment win" for the government

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said Baroness Michelle Mone should be stripped of her peerage.

A company linked to the Glaswegian entrepreneur, PPE Medro, has been ordered by the High Court to repay £122m to the UK government for breaching a Covid contract.

Badenoch told BBC News that what she had heard from the case against PPE Medpro was "enough" for her to be stripped of her title.

Mone was made a Tory peer by David Cameron in 2015, but lost the whip following the revelations about the contract to supply medical gowns.

The Conservatives said in December 2023 that she was no longer a member of the party. This was later disputed by Mone.

The baroness described the court ruling as "nothing less than an establishment win for the government in a case that was too big to lose".

Kemi Badenoch spoke to the BBC ahead of the Conservative conference in Manchester

Speaking to BBC Scotland News ahead of her party's annual conference in Manchester, Badenoch said: "I want to make sure is that people can see that the Conservative Party is a party of integrity.

"That's why we removed Michelle Mone from our party.

"And it's very, very important that people see that politicians, whether they're in the Commons or in the Lords, are acting above board."

Peerages can only be removed by an act of Parliament. The SNP have called for the UK government to take that step.

Mone is on a leave of absence from the House of Lords and Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she did not want the entrepreneur to return.

However, she said it was beyond her power to strip Mone of her peerage.

During a fringe event at Labour's party conference this week, Reeves reportedly joked that the government had a vendetta against the peer.

Mone has accused the chancellor of using "dangerous and inflammatory" language.

PPE Medpro, which was set up by a consortium led by Mone's husband, Doug Barrowman, was awarded lucrative contracts to supply 25 million medical gowns to the NHS during the pandemic.

However, the equipment has been in storage since 2020 after the company failed to prove it was correctly sterilised.

A spokesman for Mr Barrowman described the High Court judgement as "a travesty of justice".

Doug Barrowman and Michelle Mone have been married since 2020

Meanwhile, looking ahead to the Scottish Parliament election in May, Badenoch insisted it was "all to play for".

She said that while the SNP was ahead in the polls, Scots were "fed up" with the party, criticising its record on education and the economy.

The Tory leader also dismissed calls for a second independence referendum as a "distraction".

The Scottish Conservatives have been the largest opposition party at Holyrood since 2016.

However, recent polls suggest the party is now in a battle to finish as the country's fourth largest party.

Badenoch said voters were "going to protest parties" due to the Conservative's historic defeat at last year's general election and the unpopularity of Sir Keir Starmer's government.

North Sea fears

"What I'm doing is making sure the Scottish people know that the Conservative and Unionist Party is fighting for them, especially in the one area where Scotland leads, and that is on our North Sea oil industry," she said.

The Tory leader warned that the economy was underperforming and that people getting poorer could lead to "civil unrest".

She said that Aberdeen was "dying", with the oil and gas industry, local supply chain and high street all in need of support.

"We cannot kill industry in Scotland," she said. "We are backing it fully."

The UK Labour government has committed to banning new exploration licences, warning that exploring new fields would reduce household bills or improve energy security.

Scottish Energy Secretary Gillian Martin said last month that because the North Sea basin is "maturing", the "responsible approach is to plan now for this eventuality, transitioning to new fuels and sustainable energy in a way that protects our energy security and Scotland's highly skilled workforce in the North East".