Michelle Mone sent aggressive Covid contract email, Matt Hancock says

Michelle Mone became a peer in 2015

Matt Hancock has accused Tory peer Michelle Mone of being aggressive and threatening when trying to secure a government Covid contract for a firm.

Mr Hancock said she asked for help to secure contracts in an email in June 2021, when he was health secretary.

The Daily Mail reported the company was not PPE Medpro, which has been linked to Baroness Mone and won government contracts worth more than £200m.

Baroness Mone has been contacted for comment.

• Labour questions PPE contract and Mone links

• Hancock: I was warned 820,000 could die from Covid

In his book, Pandemic Diaries, which is being serialised in the Mail, Mr Hancock claimed the Glasgow-born businesswoman had demanded his "urgent help" with a company, which he has not named.

On 18 June 2021, he wrote: "Baroness Michelle Mone has sent me an extraordinarily aggressive email complaining that a company she's helping isn't getting the multi-million-pound contracts it deserves.

"She claims the firm, which makes lateral flow test kits, 'has had a dreadful time' trying to cut through red tape and demanded my 'urgent help' before it all comes out in the media.

"'I am going to blow this all wide open,' she threatened.'"

"By the end of the message, she seemed to have worked herself into a complete frenzy and was throwing around wild accusations. 'I smell a rat here. It is more than the usual red tape, incompetence and bureaucracy. That's expected! I believe there is corruption here at the highest levels'," he said.

He added: "She concluded by urging me to intervene 'to prevent the next bombshell being dropped on the government'.

"I read the message again, stunned. Was she threatening me? It certainly looked that way."

Mr Hancock said he was told the tests had not won any contracts because they had not passed the standards required.

He said he chose not to reply to the email, adding: "I won't be pushed around by aggressive peers representing commercial clients."

Matt Hancock was health secretary at the height of the pandemic

Baroness Mone, who joined the House of Lords in 2015, is facing questions about her alleged links to PPE Medpro.

The House of Lords commissioner for standards is investigating her "alleged involvement" in procuring contracts for the company.

However, the commissioner says he is unable to finalise or publish his report because "the matter is under investigation by the police or another agency of a criminal investigation".

Properties linked to the company have previously been searched by the National Crime Agency.

Between May and June 2020, PPE Medpro was awarded two government contracts worth £203m to supply masks and medical gowns.

Emails released under Freedom of Information laws show Baroness Mone referring the company to a government minister during the pandemic.

Last month, Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner accused the government of a "total failure of due diligence" and a "conflict of interest" in awarding the contracts to PPE Medpro.

She was responding to an investigation in the Guardian based on leaked documents that alleged Baroness Mone had financially benefited from the company.

She told MPs it appeared "tens of millions of pounds" from the money awarded to the company "ended up in offshore accounts connected to the individuals involved".

At a Commons debate on Tuesday, Labour will try to force ministers to release "all papers, advice, and correspondence" about the government contracts awarded to PPE Medpro.

Asked in December 2020 about reports she was linked to the company, Baroness Mone's lawyers told BBC News she "had no role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro".

In December 2020, BBC News reported that millions of medical gowns the firm supplied, worth £122m, had never been used.

PPE Medpro said at the time that it had delivered 100% of the contract to the terms specified and that it had supplied equipment "fully in accordance with the agreed contract, which included clear terms as to technical specification and performance criteria of the products".

The Department of Health and Social Care has since been in mediation with the firm over what it has described as an "underperforming contract" and last month MPs were told that no "satisfactory agreement" had been reached at this stage.