arol Vorderman has criticised her former friend Michelle Mone over a PPE contracts scandal during an incredible rant on ITV’s This Morning.
The House of Lords is looking into concerns Ms Mone may have failed to declare an interest in PPE Medpro after lobbying for it to win £203million in NHS contracts.
She has lost the Tory whip after taking a break from Parliament in an attempt to clear her name.
Baroness Mone has previously denied any “role or function” in the company.
Ms Mone and Ms Vorderman used to be friends but the former Countdown host said she has since dropped the businesswoman “like a stone”.
“I cannot talk about useless PPE without also talking about Michelle Mone who was brought into the House of Lords, as a baroness, by David Cameron,” she told This Morning’s viewers on Friday.
Entrepreneur Michelle Mone
/ PA Archive“We know she has taken leave of absence without losing the Tory whip to start with because she was actively involved, as it goes, with a company called PPE Medpro.”
Ms Vorderman admitted that she used to be friends with Ms Mone but decided to “drop her like a stone as soon as I realised what kind of person she was”.
She then looked at the camera with both hands held up and said: “Sue me, Michelle.”
This Morning host Alison Hammond interrupted: “Carol, can I just say she’s not here to defend herself.”
But Ms Vorderman replied: “No she’s not here to defend herself but I’m repeating what has been said in the press and what has proven to be true.”
The National Crime Agency has launched a potential fraud investigation into PPE Medpro and have searched Ms Mone’s house as part of the probe.
Health bosses paid PPE Medpro £122million for 25million surgical gowns under a contract agreed in June 2020.
The Department of Health and Social Care is now trying to recover costs and has launched legal action.
It is seeking £122m for the surgial gowns and £11.6m for storing and disposing of them.
In high court documents the Government has alleged the gowns were rejected as they were not sterile, their labelling was “invalid” and they “cannot be used within the NHS for any purpose’ for fear of compromising ‘the clinical safety of patients”, The Guardian reported.
