Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of rejecting Palantir Technologies' bid for a contract to run the NHS Federated Data Platform.

The Federated Data Platform will be procured via open competition, in line with Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Once launched, the procurement process will be open to all suppliers and will abide by the core principles of the 2015 Regulations, including transparency, non-discrimination, equal treatment and proportionality. These principles apply to all suppliers bidding for the Federated Data Platform, including the incumbent supplier. NHS England cannot reject a bid unless it is non-compliant with the procurement process.