Island resident Doug Barrowman has issued a fresh statement over the ongoing PPE contract controversy.

PPE Medpro was awarded two contracts by the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care (UK DHSC) in June 2020 – the first an £81m contract to supply masks and the second, worth £122m to supply surgical gowns.

The contracts were referred by Baroness Michelle Mone under the ‘VIP lane’, a system which was introduced to help the UK Government choose between large numbers of supply offers during the pandemic.

Her husband, Douglas Barrowman, was chairman of PPE Medpro.

Baroness Mone previously admitted that she and her husband stand to earn around £60 million from the that PPE deal.

In his new statement issued on Monday, Knox Group founder Mr Barrowman said: ‘Michelle and I are being hung out to dry to distract attention from government’s incompetence in how it handled PPE procurement at time of national emergency.’

He also repeated a claim that the UK government has offered to make the legal case against PPE Medro go away and would ‘call the dogs off’ if he paid enough money.

He added: ‘Michelle was neither a shareholder, a director nor a decision maker in the Medpro consortium that I led. ‘Nor was she entitled to any remuneration. All PPE money earned by me was fully disclosed on my tax return and, like all my sources of income, was put into trust for the benefit of my family.

‘We have explained the position on the BBC. Sorry to disappoint everyone, but Michelle and her kids were not entitled to any of that money. How I choose to organise my personal financial affairs is not a matter of public debate: however I will say this: as my wife, the ways in which I support Michelle financially or otherwise is entirely my decision.’