Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand ‘shameful’ Palantir NHS contract be scrapped

The spytech company and founder Peter Thiel should ‘have their hands ripped off our NHS’, say MPs during impassioned Westminster debate

MPs have queued up to demand the government scraps its £330m NHS contract with the spytech company Palantir, calling it “dreadful” and “shameful” in a debate on Thursday, after which the government said it was “no fan” of the US company’s politics.

Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs led the calls for Palantir, which also works for Donald Trump’s ICE immigration crackdown and the Israeli military, to be removed as a supplier to the NHS federated data platform (FDP), with one Labour backbencher, Samantha Niblett, questioning whether it could be “trusted as a custodian of the intimate health records of tens of millions of British citizens”.

The Lib Dem MP Luke Taylor, who called the deal “shameful”, said: “Palantir and Peter Thiel must have their hands ripped off of our NHS before it is too late.”

Thiel, a Trump-supporting tech billionaire, founded the company and has previously said that democracy and freedom are incompatible.