Cameron breached process appointing Mone as peer

Conservative MP, David Mundell, says that David Cameron breached “proper process” when he appointed Michelle Mone to the House of Lords in 2015.

Mundell, the Conservative MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, said Lord Cameron appointed Mone without Downing Street consulting the government’s Scotland Office, which is standard practice before awarding peerages to Scots.

Cameron, recently appointed to the Lords himself, and other Westminster Tories had been impressed by Mone when she backed the union in the Scottish independence referendum. She was already well known in Scotland through her lingerie business, Ultimo.

Mundell, who was the secretary for Scotland from 2015 to 2019, said some Scottish businesspeople were unhappy with Mone’s peerage, but he did not have an opportunity to discuss it until after Cameron had confirmed the appointment.

“The peerage was a fait accompli by the time we heard about it,” Mundell said. “I was unhappy that the proper process was not followed and that the Scotland Office was not asked to provide any background or input. And I wasn’t at all surprised to find that Scottish businesses were very, very unhappy about the appointment.

“I did communicate with Downing Street that Scottish business figures were unhappy because they did not consider Michelle Mone to be a substantial businesswoman.”

Shortly before giving her a peerage in August 2015, Cameron made Mone his “entrepreneurship tsar”, and she was appointed to lead a review for Iain Duncan Smith, then the work and pensions minister, on supporting people in deprived areas to set up businesses.

The government’s announcement described her as a “leading entrepreneur and businesswomen [sic]”. Later the same month, Cameron made her a Conservative life peer in his 2015 dissolution honours list, the official citation describing her as a “leading entrepreneur”.

The peerage, carrying the title Baroness Mone of Mayfair, was controversial at the time and the subject of outspoken criticism by some Scottish businesspeople.