This weekend it emerged that NCA officers are preparing to interview Michael Gove, the former Cabinet Office minister, and his former deputy, Lord Agnew, as witnesses in their investigation.

The PPE firm that received more than £200 million of taxpayers’ money after Baroness Mone lobbied ministers faces fresh questions about its ownership following claims it may have failed to declare the identity of its real owner.

Dipesh Gadher, Harry Yorke www.thetimes.co.uk 

Dan Neidle, a leading tax lawyer, has analysed PPE Medpro’s filings at Companies House and queried the company’s compliance with laws that require all firms to register the name of the person who controls them.

He has called for an investigation after the firm recently replaced one accountant with close links to Mone’s husband, Douglas Barrowman, as the so-called “person with significant control” (PSC) with another Barrowman associate.

PPE Medpro is already the subject of a long-running corruption inquiry by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

This weekend it emerged that NCA officers are preparing to interview Michael Gove, the former Cabinet Office minister, and his former deputy, Lord Agnew, as witnesses in their investigation.

Mone, 51, a Conservative peer, wrote to both ministers on their private email addresses in May 2020 offering to source urgently needed PPE supplies as the pandemic took hold in Britain.

She did not declare any financial interest in PPE Medpro and has previously denied being connected to it in any way.

Despite having no previous medical track record, the company was referred to the government’s “VIP” lane and was awarded two contracts, collectively worth £203 million, to supply face masks and surgical gowns.

In December last year it was claimed that Barrowman, 58, was paid at least £65 million in “profits” originating from PPE Medpro’s work.

Almost £29 million of this was later transferred to an offshore trust that benefits Mone and her children, according to The Guardian. A lawyer for Barrowman and PPE Medpro said at the time that a continuing investigation limited what his clients could say on the matter. He was instructed to say that some of the reporting was inaccurate.

Last weekend The Sunday Times reported that Anthony Page, a key aide to Mone and Barrowman, was sacked by PPE Medpro in May. Page, an accountant, was also dismissed from Barrowman’s Knox Group of companies on the Isle of Man for alleged gross misconduct.

Until his recent departure, Page, 47, who denies the misconduct allegations, had been listed as a director and sole shareholder of PPE Medpro, and was registered at Companies House as its PSC. On May 11, he was replaced in these roles by Arthur Lancaster, another accountant involved in Barrowman’s offshore business empire. Lancaster, 60, has also previously worked with the Duke of York and his now-defunct Pitch@Palace initiative.

In a new analysis of PPE Medpro’s filings, Neidle, the founder of the Tax Policy Associates think tank, argues that had Page been the true owner of the company he would have remained the PSC despite being fired by the Knox Group.

Neidle writes: “If, as appears to have happened, the Knox Group had the power to remove Mr Page as shareholder/director of PPE Medpro and replace him with Mr Lancaster, then the Knox Group (and Douglas Barrowman, as the person who controls the Knox Group) had ‘significant influence or control’ over PPE Medpro and Mr Barrowman should have been listed as the PSC. If the Knox Group was acting for some other unknown party then they should also have been listed as a PSC.”

Companies have been required by law since 2016 to declare their real owners, or PSC. Failure to do so could result in directors being prosecuted and, if convicted, jailed for up to two years or fined an unlimited amount.

If an individual knows that they control a company and have not been declared as the PSC then they may also have committed a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in jail or an unlimited fine.

Mone, a former lingerie tycoon nicknamed “Baroness Bra”, is being investigated separately by the House of Lords standards’ commissioner over possible breaches of parliamentary rules. Last December it was announced the peer was taking a leave of absence from parliament “in order to clear her name of the allegations unjustly levelled against her”.

Mone’s lobbying of ministers to secure contracts for PPE Medpro has previously been characterised as rude and abrasive. At one point, an exasperated Gove is said to have described her as “a right pain in the arse”. A spokesman for Gove declined to comment while Agnew was unavailable when approached.

The NCA said: “The NCA does not routinely confirm or deny the existence of investigations or the names of those who may or may not be under investigation.” Page declined to comment. In an email to The Sunday Times, the Barrowman private office disputed the interpretation of the accounts.