Baroness Michelle Mone has admitted that she stands to profit from a contract between the Government and PPE firm Medpro, but insisted that she and her husband have "no case to answer".
Speaking in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged, the Conservative peer launched a public defence over the controversy around "VIP lane" contracts during the pandemic.
PPE Medpro was awarded Government deals worth more than £200million to supply personal protective equipment after she recommended it to ministers.
The Department of Health and Social Care has since issued breach-of-contract proceedings over the 2020 deal on the supply of gowns.
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, she admitted that she is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60m of profit from the deal.
However, she claims her and her husband have been made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider failings over PPE.
Baroness Mone had previously denied that she had profited from the deal, which she first discussed with government ministers including Michael Gove.
In an interview with the BBC she conceded that she had made untruthful statements in relation to the incident.
Baroness Mone told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “If one day, if God forbid, my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children, so yes, of course.”
Baroness Mone said she did not mean to fool anyone, despite admitting the couple misled the press about their involvement.
“I did make an error in saying to the press that I wasn’t involved,” she said.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, and I regret and I’m sorry for not saying straight out, yes, I am involved.”
Millions of gowns supplied by the company were never used by health services.
The couple insist the gowns were supplied in accordance with the contract.
Mr Barrowman alleged that he was asked by a Government official if he would “would pay more money for the NCA investigation to be called off”.
“We get to November 2022, and I attend this negotiation, as opposed to a mediation.
“It’s very, very clear that, you know, they’re interested in settling but they want a sum of money that, quite honestly, we are not of a mind to pay.
“So, I then have a separate meeting. And this individual asked me would I pay more for the other matter to go away.
“I was speechless, I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that, because the only other matter on the table was the NCA investigation which had commenced in, as far as we were aware, April 2022.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked. I think it raises very serious questions as to what that official meant, what he was saying.”
Asked why he did not take the allegation to the police, he said: “I take the advice of my legal team, and the legal team at that point in time suggested that we park that one for now.”
On the same programme, deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said he would be “very surprised” if that was the case.
“I simply don’t recognise that, but, again, let’s wait and see. There’s a proper process for this to go through, which is in relation to a civil case and a criminal case.
“We will get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”
He also defended the Government's handling of PPE procurement in the early days of the crisis, insisting there were “no favours or special treatment”.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal cases.”
Labour’s Wes Streeting said he did not think anyone watching the interview with Lady Mone would be “shedding any tears”.
“There’s a fundamental point of principle here, which is, in the midst of a deadly pandemic, when so many people rushed to help others in all sorts of ways… and then there were others who saw the pandemic as an opportunity to make a quick buck at someone else’s expense.
“Our message to those people who sought to use the pandemic to get rich quick: we want our money back,” the shadow health secretary said.
Lady Mone, who was interviewed alongside her husband, recently told a YouTube documentary that they both would be cleared, arguing they have “done nothing wrong”.
The film, part of a public fightback, is believed to have been funded by PPE Medpro.
Lady Mone, who was made a peer by Lord David Cameron in 2015, has argued she is being used as a scapegoat by the Government for its own Covid failings.
Two experts who appeared in the film told The Sunday Times that they were unaware in advance of the intended focus of the documentary or its funding.
Former detective-turned-investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas, who presented and produced, the documentary, said: “For the Sunday Times to suggest contributors were duped is totally refuted , un- evidenced and totally incorrect & unfair reporting.
“Both individuals have said they would have said exactly the same had they known the programme was eventually funded by PPE Medpro.”
