The company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone, has not met the deadline to pay back almost £122 million to the Government.
PPE Medpro was awarded government contracts during the pandemic to supply personal protective equipment after it was recommended to the Conservative government by the Tory peer.
Medpro was awarded two contracts, one worth over £80m for masks and another worth £120m for gowns.
Though the masks were used, the gowns were found not to be up to standard and were never used by the NHS.
Read More:
- Michelle Mone linked PPE firm ordered to repay over £100m to government
- The Baroness of blag: Michelle Mone and the politics of no shame
- The Herald cartoon on Michelle Mone
The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) successfully sued the consortium, led by Lady Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman, earlier this year over claims it breached the deal.
In a ruling earlier this month, Lady Justice Cockerill found that the company had breached the contract as the gowns were not sterile, and ordered it to pay back £121,999,219.20 by 4pm on Wednesday.
An application to put the company into administration was lodged earlier late last month, with PPE Medpro having just £666,000 in assets.
After the deadline passed, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that PPE Medpro “has failed to meet the deadline to pay” and that interest on the sum was “now accruing daily”.
He said: “At a time of national crisis, PPE Medpro sold the previous government substandard kit and pocketed taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.”
He continued: “We will pursue PPE Medpro with everything we’ve got to get these funds back where they belong – in our NHS.”
Share