Martin Wrigley
MP for Newton Abbot · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I thank Mandy Hobbis, Tiya Ivy, CatsMatter and the nearly 200,000 people who signed the petition, which has enabled us to have this debate. I also thank Members from across the House for their contributions.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A duty to report to the police would not in itself get an injured cat to a vet, or ensure that that a dead one is scanned for a chip. Police forces are stretched, and ringing 101 will not bring help to the roadside. The sense of unfairness that the petitioners feel is real, and I understand it.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with my hon. Friend that that is the right, moral thing to do and we need to encourage drivers to do it. The animals in section 170 are ones whose owners are expected to keep them under control or fenced in, and the law has long accepted that cats roam.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When they see that dogs are covered and cats are not, they feel that the law simply does not value their animal in the same way. Other countries have updated their laws to include cats, including Italy and Hong Kong.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, that is a very good way forward. The campaigners have answered the Government’s points with some care. On the working animals argument, CatsMatter has done its own sums.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I tend to agree, and we will come to working animals shortly. Cats are not on the list. Neither, I might add, are llamas or alpacas, which gives a fair idea of how old the list is. It has come down to us, almost untouched, from the Road Traffic Act 1930. The usual explanation—my hon.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Just a few weeks ago, a family member lost their cat, Comet, who was hit by a car in a residential cul-de-sac and just left there. As with every loss of a cat, they were devastated. My daughter Emily has a beautiful white fluffy cat that rules the Wrigley household. He is called Ignatius D Flufflesworth—not that he comes when called by that name, of course. He was, however, very fond of joining in with my Zoom calls during the pandemic and pretending he was in a James Bond movie. I know how much he means to her, and the idea of losing him to a car accident without knowing what happened does not bear thinking about.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 750612 relating to placing a requirement on drivers to report collisions with cats. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers—I suspect they might need to change the nameplate. The petition was started by CatsMatter, a group co-funded by Mandy Hobbis and Tiya Ivy, who are here today. I am standing in today for my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who had the privilege of meeting Mandy ahead of today’s debate and learned that both of them had lost cats on the roads. Anyone who has waited up for a pet that never came home will understand why the campaign has kept going since 2017. I should declare an interest. I have always lived with cats and have lost several to being run over.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree. Cats are not just companions; they are members of the family, so, yes, collisions should be reported. Clearly, we are not alone. By the time the petition closed on 17 June, it had gathered 189,192 signatures, many of which were in my own Newton Abbot constituency.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, absolutely. It is the not knowing that is really awful. I will come on to that. I am told that this is the largest cat welfare petition that has ever come to Parliament. That is a great many people and they deserve to have their concerns properly heard today. So where does the law stand?”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From my experience, I suspect that the right hon. Member’s third option is probably correct. On people’s confusion about where to report a collision with a cat, section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says that a driver who hits certain animals must stop and, if necessary, report it to the police. Those animals are horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. Cats are not on the list.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I tend to agree, and we will come to working animals shortly. Cats are not on the list. Neither, I might add, are llamas or alpacas, which gives a fair idea of how old the list is. It has come down to us, almost untouched, from the Road Traffic Act 1930. The usual explanation—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) must have read my speech in advance—is that these are working animals with an economic value to their owners, whereas cats were seen as pets. Rule 286 of the highway code does advise drivers to report any collision with an animal and, where possible, to find the owner of a cat. However, that is only guidance, and a driver who hits a cat can carry on driving without breaking any law.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, I agree—it should. In their response to the petition, the Government noted they have “no current plans” to change the law due to the fact that cats are small and often out at dawn and dusk, so a driver may genuinely not know that they have hit one. They argued that, alongside research into how councils identify cats found on the road, compulsory microchipping offers a better way forward.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When they see that dogs are covered and cats are not, they feel that the law simply does not value their animal in the same way. Other countries have updated their laws to include cats, including Italy and Hong Kong. CatsMatter argues that even if a new duty of stopping for cats was rarely enforced, it would tell drivers what decent behaviour on the road looks like. The question is whether the reasons for leaving cats out of section 170 still hold up in 2026. Cats Protection, the UK’s leading cat welfare charity, wants exactly the same outcome as the petitioners. Nobody wants an injured cat to be left to suffer, or an owner to be left forever wondering. However, the charity has real concerns about using this particular piece of law.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, that is a very good way forward. The campaigners have answered the Government’s points with some care. On the working animals argument, CatsMatter has done its own sums. Using a University of Bristol study and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs farm figures, it reckons that there could be around 60,000 working farm cats in England, against roughly 65,000 working sheepdogs. It is open that those are estimates, but I represent a great many farms, and I can tell Members that farm cats in Devon work as hard as farm dogs and earn their keep. The campaigners also make a broader point, and I have some sympathy with it: many people now think of their cats as one of the family—Ignatius is certainly part of ours.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That brings me on to what drivers actually face. Picture someone on a dark road who has just hit a cat. They are shaken and they do not know whether to ring the police, the council, a vet, a charity or highways, because responsibility is split across all of them. I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government will do to give that driver a clear answer. That may or may not mean amending the Road Traffic Act 1988. Whatever the mechanism, cats should not be left to suffer at the roadside, and their owners should not spend years wondering what happened to them. I thank Mandy and Tiya and everyone at CatsMatter for their work, and I look forward to hearing from colleagues and the Minister’s reply.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A duty to report to the police would not in itself get an injured cat to a vet, or ensure that that a dead one is scanned for a chip. Police forces are stretched, and ringing 101 will not bring help to the roadside. The sense of unfairness that the petitioners feel is real, and I understand it. It has been fascinating to open the debate on this petition, because the fact of the matter is that everyone involved—on both sides of the petition—is united around one thing: they all care deeply about cats; they just disagree about whether changing section 170 is the right answer. What they also agree on is what should happen if a cat is hit. If the cat is alive, it needs to see a vet as quickly as possible. Alive or dead, it should be scanned for a microchip, so that its owner can be found and told.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with my hon. Friend that that is the right, moral thing to do and we need to encourage drivers to do it. The animals in section 170 are ones whose owners are expected to keep them under control or fenced in, and the law has long accepted that cats roam. Cats Protection worries that bringing cats into a framework created for dogs and livestock could open up questions about an owner’s liability if a roaming cat causes an accident. It might also nudge people towards keeping their cats indoors—speaking as Ignatius’s feeder and door-opener, I am not sure he would take kindly to that. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals supports the aim of the petition and says it would not stand in the way of a change in the law. Its concern is a practical one.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“10 and Mr Speaker’s cat Attlee. They might, like me, be slightly disappointed by the Minister’s response to the debate. I have great sympathy for all those Members from across the House who talked about the issues with their own animals and those of their constituents. When I was elected, I promised to stand up for cats, and I am pleased to be able to do so—”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank Mandy Hobbis, Tiya Ivy, CatsMatter and the nearly 200,000 people who signed the petition, which has enabled us to have this debate. I also thank Members from across the House for their contributions. Some significant themes have emerged from the debate, including cats being part of the family; people not knowing what has happened to their lost cat adding to the trauma of the situation; people loving their cats; and too many cats being hit by cars. I particularly noted the statistic that every day in every constituency two cats are hit by cars. That is just too many for nothing to happen. Two members of this robust institution have not been mentioned today—I am surprised they were not referred to, although I loved hearing about Clem Cattlee, Mo Meowlam and the other cats around the place—and they are Larry in No.”
House of Commons26 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yesterday, we heard in this Chamber many of the shortcomings of this year’s SFI window 2. Just one week after it closed, I visited Ross and Ginny Thomson at Smallacombe farm in my Newton Abbot constituency and their successful herd of milking goats. They described the SFI process as a fiasco. With 40 days and 40 nights of rain, the driest summer on record, multiple heatwaves, plagues of midges spreading bluetongue and now severe drought and yellow warnings of our first named storm, what will the Government do to help Devon’s farmers adapt to the changing climate?”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have heard about the impact on small businesses and, indeed, on bands, but there is a side impact on zoos. I have visited Shaldon zoo in my constituency. The loss of the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement means that we cannot move breeding animals from zoo to zoo, so we are losing species because of Brexit as well. Does the hon. Member agree?”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps my hon. Friend, like me, saw several screenings of “The People’s Emergency Briefing” over the summer recess. It paints a devastating picture of what will happen if we continue down this route, and that includes fracking. Does she agree that we need a national briefing to educate people on the issue?”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I understand that the hon. Gentleman thought the summer, while being the hottest on record, was more of a millionaire’s paradise than the awful situation it was for many in our country. Does he not understand the science of climate change that he is encouraging us to continue to aggravate, or is he simply a flat-earther entirely?”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister agree that not only did the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) exaggerate the amount of available gas that might be in the UK—less than 10% of such gas is usually recovered, and that normally trails off after a year—but that such gas is not actually pulled out of the ground by nodding donkeys? Typically, a structure called a Christmas tree is used, not the nodding donkeys described by the hon. Gentleman.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q11. US big tech has exploited us for far too long, so I am delighted that the Met police followed my advice and pushed Apple and Google to implement the stolen handset blacklist, curbing resales and cutting mobile theft by almost half. Likewise, does the Prime Minister agree that it is time to stand up to social media companies and reclassify them from platforms to publishers, holding them responsible for the harmful and addictive content that they recommend, promote and profit from?”
House of Commons24 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It sounds like the Secretary of State is hearing a fairly unanimous view from members of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which is good. Today’s ban is a welcome start, but it is only a start and is not sufficient. Does the Secretary of State agree with me and the Committee that, in addition to parents and children taking action, the responsibility must be on the companies, as well as enforcement, because they are providing the product? Recommendation engines make them publishers of dangerous and addictive content; they are not passive platforms, as they would put forward, and they are doing it for financial gain.”
House of Commons15 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister pause the signing of that contract, which is due this Thursday, so that appropriate scrutiny can take place to ensure that a competitive tendering process has been followed transparently?”
House of Commons8 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Palantir appears to have a habit of avoiding competitive tender and scrutiny by using free trials and locking up the contract specifications after getting a foot in the door. I congratulate the London Mayor on stopping the recent potential contract offered by the Met police without a competitive tender process. However, last week, the estimated £17 million contract for the National Firearms Licensing Management System was won by a bid from Palantir of just £7.5 million, just 44% of the expected price. That suggests either a massive error in estimation, or Palantir buying the job, giving it unfettered access to whisper in the ear of all 43 police forces.”
House of Commons8 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was trying not to interrupt his flow— [Interruption.] Until I did. Throughout the files there are mentions of Palantir and Peter Mandelson, including a memo in which he tries to introduce Peter Thiel to No. 10 staff in June last year. Even though Mr Louis Mosley has written to me today suggesting that Peter Mandelson was not intervening regarding Palantir business with the Government, does the Minister agree that he still was doing so?”
House of Commons3 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will focus on two things: the changes in data privacy and access to support a centralised single patient record, and the abolition of Healthwatch. Healthwatch is not the same as the other regulators and it should not be amalgamated. Regulators can be amalgamated only if they have a single purpose and a single viewpoint. Healthwatch today is not a regulator but a patient advocate and there are no others in the system. Without Healthwatch, the remainder of the checks and balances come from the medical profession and the health establishment—and we have seen cases where that goes wrong. Healthwatch guards against that. It is a vital body to speak up for the patient, rather than the NHS itself.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Systems built over years with focus on patient treatment and defined use cases could be rolled out today with no change required in law and privacy by design built in from day one. Greater Manchester and others have the single patient record capability and the hard-won foundation of trust. I will be tabling amendments to remove the relaxation of data privacy from the Bill. The measures are unnecessary if NHS England does not follow the Palantir advice and instead follows what has been proven to work in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Shropshire and many other places. Perhaps it is an example of something that has worked in Manchester that might work everywhere.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government admit that but claim it is partial and fragmented. They also claim that the data will remain in the systems where it currently exists. However, with the Bill, the Government are asking to remove all protection of patient data—look at proposed new sections 250E(1) and (3) to the National Health Service Act 2006 as set out in clause 47(2) of the Bill. We are asked to trust somewhere below primary legislation that it will all be okay—we should trust the regulation. It is a big-tech approach to deliver an overreaching centralised system, rather than a distributed interoperable solution. NHS England has ignored and discounted UK sovereign systems that can and do provide what is required along with patient trust.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. We heard earlier how Kevin Dixon of Devon gives us excellent reports of what is happening with Healthwatch. The modern NHS must run on data, but critically, on data that carries the consent of patients. A single patient record is undeniably critical to see the data of patients all in one place, but it must be built from a patient’s point of view, not from a centralised data-analysis point of view, and with privacy by design from day one. We obviously need GPs to see hospital data and vice versa, and ambulances to see everything that they need to help, but we do not need the new regulation to do that. The single patient record already exists in a federated model; in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Shropshire and more, trusts already run interoperable access for care services, GPs and hospitals.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“All the features that the hon. Member is asking for are available to people within the Greater Manchester area. Exactly those things are there and work today, even down to the remote monitoring he mentions.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When incentives drift, when control is lost, when systems become extractive, the social contract begins to fail. We have talent in this country, and we have capability. The question is whether we choose to use it. In the end, I want to see systems that work and a social contract that people can trust. The King’s Speech does not sufficiently address sovereign capability, and it lacks ambition. The Government need to go further and faster for us to truly be defence ready.”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is where the Government have a role—not to replace markets but to make them work properly again. In sector after sector we see systems that continue to function but no longer serve the people they were designed for. That applies equally to defence and security. Resilience is about not just spending levels but design. It is about ensuring that we do not build national capability on systems that can fail at a single point—whether that is a supply chain, a digital platform or a dependency on external actors. Sovereign capability is not an abstract concept. It is the practical ability to continue operating when conditions are difficult. It is the ability to serve our country and our constituents through thick and thin, whatever the weather. What links all of this is simple.”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From a national perspective, it raises the question: what happens if that capability is withdrawn, restricted or simply becomes too expensive to change? We have British firms, British engineers, and a strong, open-source capability that could deliver these systems, so the issue is not capability but choice. We cannot make the same mistake with the new single patient record in the forthcoming health Bill, announced in the King’s Speech. That should be transformational, allowing access to patients’ details wherever they originate, and it must be a sovereign capability. The same principle applies to business more broadly. Markets should reward value creation, but too often now the incentives cause value to be extracted instead, whether through monopoly positions, weak regulation or misaligned incentives.”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to use one example: the Palantir contract with the NHS. That example demonstrates, in one place, how we have got it all wrong. We have a major national system that handles highly sensitive personal data where the procurement model is subscription-based, not delivery-based, and where the intellectual property is wrapped up in “know-how”, as much of what is built does not sit clearly with the public. If we become dependent on a single supplier over time, that is not just a procurement question but a question of control, resilience and long-term cost. From a systems perspective, it creates lock-in. From an economic perspective, it allows value to flow out, rather than being built here.”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are wasting it on our own bureaucracies, while too often the gains are captured elsewhere. We need to move back to something much more fundamental: an economy and a set of systems that we build, understand and control. That means having real capability on sovereign technology, UK business and intellectual property, and a resilient defence and security. But this is not abstract. It is directly connected to whether this country is affordable, liveable and works for the people in it. Ultimately, this is about the social contract. My constituents need to know that the systems that they rely on—public services, housing, business, using buses and trains—have purpose to the people and are not just bottom lines to fill. They need to know that they are designed in their interest and will continue to work for them over time.”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had a very interesting debate, with interesting speeches from many Members. I, too, am fully behind the rapid increase in funds for defence and I wish to add my thanks to our serving personnel. Defence readiness requires a whole-society response and sovereign capability. Across a wide range of issues in our technologies, defence, infrastructure, housing and regulation, the same pattern keeps appearing. Services and systems that are set up to serve the public gradually drift away from having purpose to simply extracting rents and our time, all wrapped up in a bureaucratic mess. The overriding demand for quarterly profits and denial of early intervention, instead rationing resources at the point of maximum need, has driven perverse outcomes in strategic change. We are renting our entire economy to ourselves.”
House of Commons20 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for securing this valuable debate. I have a good number of park home sites in my constituency. Not only do they suffer the 10% commission, poor maintenance levels and high service charges, but they have atrocious service on the utilities that they have to buy through the park home owner. Some years ago, one site collectively was charged £100,000 for a water leak, which was £1,000 a home. I got that refunded from South West Water. The same site recently had blocked drains over a weekend, so people could not flush their toilets, and their Calor gas system was deemed unfit for use, so they had no heating. Is that an acceptable way to run a site? Does the hon. Member agree that residents need better enforcement and support, and not just from the site owner?”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yesterday, I asked the Prime Minister about the security vetting condition that required Peter Mandelson to be accompanied when visiting previous clients. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to find out whether the lack of accompaniment when visiting Palantir in Washington with the Prime Minister was a one-off or simply Mandelson continuing business as usual?”
House of Commons21 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I understand that Peter Mandelson’s vetting clearance was conditional on his being accompanied to meetings with former clients, such as Palantir. Will the Prime Minister clarify why there is no record of his and Peter Mandelson’s meeting with Palantir in Washington, and will he tell the House what it was all about?”
House of Commons20 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for her report from our Select Committee, which I particularly enjoy working on. I find it very useful to bring people such as the social media companies before the Committee. We had a very—shall I say—vibrant meeting with them recently. Does the hon. Member agree that they are not doing enough in this space, and that we need to get them to do an awful lot more and to take responsibility?”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although I understand the appeal of a slick salesman who persuades that they can solve all the problems in the NHS, build that one system to bind them all, and use AI like magic to provide all the answers, sadly, it is not reality. Is Palantir’s FDP a product that the NHS can own and trust, or have we bought the emperor’s new clothes that, after huge investment, leave us with nothing? I will outline why this solution is wrong in three significant points: the contract is wrong, the solution is wrong and the supplier is wrong and simply not delivering on its promises.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government’s contracts tracker describes a data platform owned and controlled by the NHS “to unlock the power of NHS data to understand patterns, solve problems, plan services for local populations and ultimately transform the health and care of the people they serve.” Sadly, the FDP developed by Palantir is far from that description. The NHS is an inherently distributed organisation, with trusts in charge of their own IT. Although NHS England has been working on a unified data dictionary and standards, imposing a single central IT solution has yet to work. Indeed, a single central system can become a single point of failure. Such a critical element of national infrastructure must be under full control, fully owned and trusted.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the NHS Federated Data Platform. We are at a key time for the NHS as it changes from analogue to digital, and data is key to achieving better health results for all our constituents, as well as to the future of the NHS. AI analysis of scans can spot patterns of disease before the human eye, and modern communications can be much more effective than sending letters, which often arrive late. We are, however, at a junction where we can correct a series of mistakes made in the direction of travel in this process. I ask the Government to mind the gap between expectation and reality. We can and need to change. In November 2023, a contract for services approaching £500 million was signed for the federated data platform.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When in front of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, the only benefit offered by the supplier and by NHS England was an improvement in managing staff rotas to deliver a higher operation throughput, which these days can be done by a relatively simple app. That is beneficial, but it perhaps relates more to the Government’s improvements in staffing and pay than to any magic from Palantir. It claims to have achieved waiting list reductions by removing people who do not respond to messages, but there is no external scrutiny or validation of results. This is a dreadful contract, and it is not in the national interest.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It uses external AI platforms from OpenAI and Anthropic and brings questionable value itself. Prior to it buying an opportunity to provide its system to help manage the data from the covid vaccine programme, the supplier had no expertise in health. The three-year contract asks for 13 core capabilities to be delivered. According to the National Audit Office and the supplier, after nearly three years, it has partially delivered on three or four of those capabilities. Hon. Members may have received letters from the supplier, which has also taken to sponsoring newsletters that we see every day.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The current contract delivers a subscription service that leaves no deliverables after the subscription—no software, no improvements and no intellectual property after spending more than £330 million. All the specially written software and intellectual property rights belong to the supplier, says the contract. All the rights to any know-how are explicitly retained by the supplier and not passed across on termination of the contract. The contract delivers no software—not one line—just a subscribed service; a permanent lock-in; a single point of failure. Why are we building a leased service wrapped in glossy marketing promises, rather than a product that the NHS can own and trust? We are paying the supplier to hire Accenture, PwC, NHS experts and consultants to create a solution that we do not own—the supplier does.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with the hon. Lady entirely. The secret meeting in 2019 between Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings and Peter Thiel—the founder and chair of Palantir—that started this whole thing, for which there are no minutes, must be clarified as well. I ask the Minister to consider using the contract renewal point to stop the chaotic expansion of the Palantir platform monopoly, to work to a staged exit with a retender for British companies to build a replacement for Palantir, and to deliver a better, long-term solution providing British sovereign capabilities in line with principles outlined by the Science and Research Minister and the Prime Minister.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think my hon. Friend has been reading my speech in advance. I absolutely agree with him. I see that the outgoing NHS England chief data and analytics officer, Ming Tang, has publicly joined Palantir’s fightback, saying that the system is delivering—but having introduced Palantir and lobbied to deploy it, she would say that, wouldn’t she? Given Palantir’s habit of lobbying civil servants and the revolving door from Government, I wait to see where she will end up. I ask the Minister to review the contract, particularly in the light of the Government’s policies on investing in UK tech, value for money, technical lock-in, key performance indicators and strategic supplier status, which suppliers should have. I ask the Minister to reject extending the existing contract, which locks in the NHS forever and delivers nothing tangible.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, as do the Prime Minister and the Science and Research Minister. Turning to the solution, the solution is wrong. There have been many attempts to unify the NHS by using a single IT system; each one has failed. In reality, we must think of the NHS as thousands of independent organisations. NHS England has been guiding organisations towards a combined data dictionary for more than 10 years, combining definitions of what data means, how it is recorded and the way it is used. After three years, about half of the 200-odd NHS trusts across 42 integrated care boards are quoted as live on the FDP, and only a quarter of them report benefits from using it.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It can also be built by a UK tech consortium in parallel with phasing out Palantir, which would build UK sovereign solutions, tech skills and competencies. Meanwhile, NHS England’s October 2025 medium-term planning framework mandates all NHS providers of acute, community and mental health services to sign up to the FDP, and it demands that any existing local data analysis systems are removed. That results in further lock-in.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has just gone live in Torbay trust, which serves most of my Newton Abbot constituency. In an organisation as diverse as the NHS, with such distributed responsibility, we can either impose one massive system to rule them all or build interoperability. Interoperability would allow GPs to see hospital records and vice versa. Palantir is not doing that. Interoperability is how massive systems, such as the internet or mobile phone networks, work. They do not rely on one single system or supplier. In that way, a modular system, a bit like Lego, can be constructed that, overall, is immune to changes elsewhere in the wider environment, providing only the specific data required to deliver improvements in services. That form of system builds long-term capability and delivers without requiring a locked-in, expensive subscription.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗