Baroness Michelle Mone has admitted she stands to benefit from a contract between the government and PPE firm Medpro.

The Conservative peer and Ultimo bra tycoon has previously conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the firm, which was awarded huge contracts during the pandemic and is being investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

PPE Medpro was awarded government contracts worth more than £200m to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.

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Who is Michelle Mone and what is the PPE controversy?

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In an appearance on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Baroness Mone admitted she is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60m of profit from the deal, but said the couple have been made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider failings over PPE.

Baroness Mone has repeatedly denied she profited from the deal, which she first discussed with government ministers including Michael Gove.

But Baroness Mone told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “If one day, if God forbid, my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children, so yes, of course.”

Baroness Mone said she did not mean to fool anyone, despite admitting the couple misled the press about their involvement.

“I did make an error in saying to the press that I wasn’t involved,” she said

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, and I regret and I’m sorry for not saying straight out, yes, I am involved.”

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Deputy prime minister disputes Lady Mone’s claims

Responding to Baroness Mone’s claims the government was at fault, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “Well, I don’t accept that.

“What I would say is there is an ongoing investigation both by the National Crime Agency, and indeed the Department of Health is suing the company concerned in civil litigation.

“So, there is a limit to what I can say, but I don’t recognise that characterisation.”

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The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has since issued breach of contract proceedings over the 2020 deal on the supply of gowns – million supplied by the company were never used by health services.

The couple insists the gowns were supplied in accordance with the contract.

Lady Mone, who was interviewed alongside her husband, recently told a YouTube documentary – funded by PPE Medpro – they both would be cleared and argued they have “done nothing wrong”.

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