Baroness Michelle Mone has hit out at critics following the political fallout from the PPE Medpro ruling.

The UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) sued PPE Medpro in 2022, claiming the company failed to meet legal requirements that 25 million surgical gowns supplied during the Covid pandemic be sterile.

On Wednesday, Mrs Justice Cockerill handed down her ruling in London, finding against PPE Medpro following a five-week trial. The judge ordered the firm to repay £122 million, plus additional costs and interest.

Since the ruling, Baroness Mone, who has a home in the Isle of Man, has faced renewed criticism. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves joked that the government had a ‘vendetta’ against her, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for her to be stripped of her peerage, saying ‘they should throw the book at her’.

In response, Baroness Mone accused the Chancellor of using ‘incendiary’ language that had ‘directly increased the risks to my personal safety’.

In a letter sent to Ms Badenoch, she reacted angrily to the comments. She wrote: ‘I was shocked to the core to read about your inflammatory language on BBC Radio calling for me to resign from the House of Lords.

‘I’m going to ask you the question – what is it exactly that I have done wrong? Do you know? If so, please enlighten me.’

She said the ongoing National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation was unrelated to PPE Medpro. ‘Therefore, the civil case and the outcome against PPE Medpro has no bearing on the NCA investigation or me,’ she said.

‘So if I am supposed to have done wrong, what could that be? Well, the case theory of the NCA investigation is that I somehow misled the Conservative government about my alleged concealed involvement and ended up pocketing a lot of money.

‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it isn’t true. After four years and five months of investigating a relatively simple matter, the NCA has never arrested or charged my husband or me.

‘I have never received a penny from PPE Medpro. Reference to £29m being placed in a trust for me and my kids is a lie.’

Addressing the issue of the so-called ‘VIP lane’, which fast-tracked PPE contracts during the pandemic, she said it was used by a number of Conservative peers with the party’s knowledge.

‘So, Kemi, my role was exactly the same as all other Conservative MPs and peers who were trying to help provide PPE,’ she said. ‘If I have done wrong, then so have all the others in the VIP lane. In which case, you should be calling for them to resign as well.’

In closing, Baroness Mone said: ‘You will be pleased to hear that once I do clear my name, I have no wish to return to the Lords as a Conservative peer – that’s assuming there still is a Conservative Party before the next General Election.’

Baroness Mone rose to prominence through her lingerie brand Ultimo before being appointed to the House of Lords by David Cameron in 2015. She and her husband, Doug Barrowman, who married at Peel Cathedral in 2020, initially denied involvement in PPE Medpro but confirmed in 2023 that he owned the company. They retain a home in St Mark’s.

PPE Medpro is now in the process of going into administration. It has £666,000 in assets after spending £4.3m defending the High Court case.