Michelle Mone and her husband have accused the Covid Inquiry of being a “whitewash of ministerial corruption” and branded the decision not to allow them to participate as “grotesquely unfair”.
Baroness Mone and her husband, Doug Barrowman, wanted to participate in the inquiry when it investigates PPE procurement, allowing them access to documents and the ability to suggest questions via their lawyers and get advance notice of the inquiry’s report.
Baroness Heather Hallett, the inquiry’s chairwoman, rejected their two applications. She warned that allowing their application to continue would “lead to further diversion and cause significant disruption to the timetable” of the probe.
Baroness Mone and Barrowman have been scrutinized over the “VIP lane” contracts granted to some suppliers during the coronavirus pandemic.
PPE Medpro, a consortium led by Barrowman, was awarded Government contracts worth more than £200m to supply PPE after Lady Mone recommended it to ministers.
Baroness Mone said the couple had been “denied the basic right to defend themselves against false, damaging allegations” made at the inquiry.
They claim Lord Agnew, a cabinet office minister responsible for procurement during the pandemic and behind the controversial VIP lane for supplying PPE, made “unsubstantiated and wrongful comments” during his evidence on Tuesday.
During his evidence, Lord Agnew stated: “There was no heninous plan to enrich a few of our mates. This was was credible people who came forward, mostly.
“There were no doubt one or two crooks or cranks.”
Baroness Mone shared a third letter from her legal team on Wednesday, stating that they will “continue to fight”.
In the letter addressed to Lady Hallett, Grosvenor Law wrote: “The Inquiry has recently heard from Lord Agnew, who was permitted—without challenge or serious reprimand from the Chair — to make unsubstantiated and wrongful comments in evidence, to the clear effect that our clients were ‘crooks’ who would be ‘dealt with by the NCA’.
“If ever the inquiry needed clearer evidence of the grotesque unfairness of excluding our clients from participation in this module, Lord Agnew has provided it.
“He was the architect of the VIP lane, to which our clients contributed with huge success, providing hundreds of millions of lifesaving pieces of PPE, all at below the market price at the time.
“Despite the inquiry’s purported concern as to prejudice to the NCA criminal investigation, Lord Agnew has been permitted to make utterly prejudicial comments, with no opportunity for our clients to challenge him in cross-examination.
“This follows countless social media posts to the same effect, which no official body has sought to prevent, including the Attorney-General.
“Any fig leaf of legitimacy left for this module of the inquiry has now been blown away. But it is not too late, even now.”
It adds that the couple continue to demand the right to give evidence at the inquiry or for their counsel to make submissions.
They have asked the chair to postpone the closed hearing until the couple can participate so as not to “discredit the inquiry even further”.
The letter adds: “Put rhetorically, is this Inquiry really a search for the truth or simply a whitewash of ministerial corruption and incompetence?
“The events and evidence in the past month very sadly suggest the latter. The Chair is known for her robust independence from government and willingness to throw open the curtains of official secrecy and bring in the light of fact, reason and fairness.
“And yet, on this occasion, the very people with the most to lose and the most to contribute to the search for the truth have been wholly excluded from any involvement in the process.
“On the most basic of levels, this is an injustice which cannot be allowed to stand.
“This is an occasion when there can be no higher priority than to right an obvious injustice and to allow the truth to emerge, in the full view of the British public, without secrecy and lies, for the very first time.
“If this is not a time for the inquiry’s huge team to take urgent action, it is difficult to understand what the point of the exercise actually is, other than going through the motions at great public expense.”
The Inquiry will continue to explore pandemic procurement across the UK until March 27.
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