STORY
The long-running saga of the “Lingerie Tycoon” and the unusable medical gowns has reached a cynical conclusion as PPE Medpro, the firm linked to Baroness Michelle Mone, has been forced into compulsory liquidation. The ruling on 18 December 2025 by the specialist companies court ensures that the £148 million owed to the British taxpayer will likely never be recovered, marking a final, bitter chapter in a scandal defined by greed and a high-profile web of deception.
At the heart of the outrage is the legacy of Michelle Mone herself, a woman who spent years orchestrating a brazen campaign of public lies before finally being cornered by the truth. For more than two years, the Baroness and her legal representatives issued aggressive denials to the media, insisting she had “no involvement” and “no financial interest” in PPE Medpro. She threatened journalists with libel and ridiculed those who questioned her integrity, only to eventually admit in a televised interview that she had lied to the press. Her confession revealed that she had not only lobbied then-ministers Michael Gove and Lord Agnew for the contracts but had stood to benefit from tens of millions of pounds in profits funnelled into her husband’s offshore accounts.
The liquidation of PPE Medpro is seen by critics as the ultimate extension of that dishonesty. By allowing the company to enter insolvency, the directors have effectively ensured that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is left holding a bill for millions of defective surgical gowns that were deemed a risk to NHS staff and never used.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has condemned the “shameful” disappearance of the funds, noting that the money lost to PPE Medpro could have funded thousands of nurses or modernised crumbling hospital wings. While the corporate entity of PPE Medpro may be dead, the Government has signalled its intent to pierce the corporate veil and pursue the individuals behind the scheme. Investigators are now focused on the millions transferred to the Isle of Man, seeking to prove that the company was stripped of its assets specifically to avoid the looming DHSC refund.
When questioned about her lies in 2023, Mone told journalists that “that’s not a crime”. Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Conservative Party, said that Mone should be stripped of her Peerage which had been granted by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.