The Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman interview

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest news stories from the BBC. In this special episode, we bring you an extended interview with Baroness Mone and her husband, Doug Barrowman.

She admits that she stands to benefit from tens of millions of pounds of profit from PPE that was sold to the UK government during the pandemic by a company led by her husband.

The couple also accept that they lied to the press about their involvement with the firm.

This episode of Newscast was presented by Laura Kuenssberg. It was made by Chris Flynn. The technical producer was Jonny Hall. The senior news editors are Jonathan Aspinwall and Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.7	Hello, newscasters. This is a bit of a different episode because I've been talking at length
0:09.7	to Baroness Michelle Moan and her husband Doug Barriman. If you've heard those names before,
0:15.2	and I'm sure you have, it's probably because you've seen some of the astonishing number of
0:19.5	headlines about them in the last couple of years. They've been accused of selling unusable PPE, that's gowns brought by the government during the COVID pandemic,
0:29.7	and they've been accused of lying about making millions of pounds from the taxpayer in the
0:34.6	process via a company called PPE Medpro. Until very recently they denied any links to
0:41.8	the business at all and Baroness Moen denied that she had profited.
0:47.2	But in our interview we challenge her and him on the claims being made.
0:52.0	PPE Medpro, the company is being sued by the Department of Health for a
0:55.2	hundred and twenty two million. Department for Health say there's been a breach of
1:00.0	contract and unjust enrichment. The couple's also being investigated by the National Crime Agency.
1:07.2	Up until this point they've only talked to broadcasters and journalists through their lawyers,
1:11.7	although last week they published a film online funded by PPE Medpro.
1:17.4	Now after many months of denials and what looks like hiding away they decided to sit down with me. This is what happened. Baroness Moone, Doug Barreman, let's go back in time to that terrible spring of 2020.
1:39.4	You thought you could supply PPE, masks, gowns, equipment that was desperately needed for the government.
1:46.4	Doug Westminster government wasn't your world.
1:50.1	What was your motivation?
1:52.1	Well like everyone else we were in lockdown in the Isle of Man and Michelle and I watched the terrible scenes unfurl in television and the clear shortage that there was in PPE.
2:01.0	We looked at each other and we thought we could make a difference. We had strong
2:04.5	contacts in China and the Far East and you know that was that moment we thought we could
2:09.8	actually supply PPE and volume and make a difference here. A big business opportunity though as
	...

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