Matt Hancock accuses Michelle Mone of sending 'threatening' message over covid contracts

05.12.2022 - 17:13 / dailyrecord.co.uk

Matt Hancock has accused former Scots bra tycoon Michelle Mone of sending him a "threatening" message after a firm she was helping did not secure a deal during the covid pandemic.

The former Tory Health Secretary, who has recently returned from a stint in the I'm A Celeb jungle, claimed the Tory peer was "extraordinarily aggressive" when lobbying to help a company win a lateral flow test contract.

In his new book, Pandemic Diaries, Hancock said Mone "was throwing around wild accusations" because the firm wasn't getting the contracts it deserved.

He wrote: "Baroness Michelle Mone has sent me an extraordinarily aggressive email complaining that a company she's helping isn't getting the multi-million-pound contracts it deserves."

It comes after the Glasgow entrepreneur was urged to repay £29m of taxpayers' cash over PPE deals from a different firm.

Leaked documents released last month suggest Baroness Mone received the money through an offshore trust, which seems to have originated as profits from £200m deals she promoted through the UK Government's VIP lane.

It is claimed £28.8million from the total £65m profits from the deal was moved in October 2020 to a trust, called Keristal, that allegedly has the peer and her children as beneficiaries.

Over 130,000 people have backed a call for her to be booted out the Lords and to repay the cash. Hancock recalled that Mone worked herself into a "complete frenzy" over the deals during the pandemic.

He wrote: "She claims the firm, which makes lateral flow test kits, 'has had a dreadful time' trying to cut through red tape and demanded my 'urgent help' before it all comes out in the media. I am going to blow this all wide open, she threatened.

"By the end of the message, she seemed to have