Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to recommendation 15 of the Strategic Defence Review: Making Britain Safer: secure at home, strong abroad, published on 2 June 2025, what recent progress his Department has made on tackling (a) structural, (b) behavioural and (c) leadership barriers to the creation of a more (i) representative and (ii) meritocratic workforce.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
Raising our Standards has been established by Defence to address structural, behavioural, and leadership barriers. This work is key to operational delivery, recruitment, retention and driving forward an inclusive and safe culture. Raising our Standards has planned initiatives under five pillars: communications and influencing behaviour change, data and analytics, 100% action when tackling unacceptable behaviours, streamlined education and training, and developing world-class leaders.
In response to recommendation 15 of the Strategic Defence Review regarding independent oversight of implementation, Raising our Standards is working to implement a refreshed External Challenge Panel by October 2025.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address comments made by Ming Tang, Chief Data and Analytics Officer for NHS England, regarding the "poor" and "inefficient" nature of many hospital computer systems; and what steps will they take to address her assertion that US-designed Electronic Patient Records were primarily intended to "maximise revenues rather than productivity or patient outcomes".
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has supported the National Health Service to invest £2 billion over the past four years to buy or upgrade computer systems to meet the baseline standard, and will continue to support investment in the next Spending Review period. NHS England has a good relationship with US Electronic Patient Record vendors and is working collaboratively with them to ensure that software is optimised for use in the NHS in England, which includes a focus on productivity and outcomes.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department collects data on (a) errors and (b) false positives arising from algorithmic fraud detection tools.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP is committed to processing data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically, with meaningful human input and safeguards in place to protect individuals. “Algorithmic fraud detection tool” is not a term we use in DWP however, the department develops, tests, and invests in advanced analytics to support the detection of fraud and error. Currently, the UC Advances model is the only machine learning model deployed at scale in live service. On the 17th July, the Department published a fairness assessment of the UC Advances model, which includes consideration of the model’s performance. The model remains an effective fraud prevention control, performing approximately three times better than a control group in identifying high-risk advances.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether (a) federated machine learning and (b) transfer learning techniques have been employed in the Federated Data Platform.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Neither federated machine learning nor transfer learning techniques are currently utilised within the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP).
The FDP is designed to support operational use cases such as elective recovery, care coordination, and discharge planning by enabling secure, real-time access to data across National Health Service organisations. While the platform supports advanced analytics and data integration, it does not currently employ federated or transfer learning methods as part of its architecture or functionality.
NHS England continues to monitor developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning to ensure that any future applications involving NHS data align with core NHS principles, including safety, fairness, and accountability.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 57 of his Department's joint policy paper entitled Security and defence partnership between the European Union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published on 19 May 2025, whether the UK and the EU have (a) held any exchanges of views on policy approaches and (b) promoted joint action on (i) data and analytics (ii) other matters since 19 May 2025.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Security and Defence Partnership agreed with the European Union on 19 May is an example of this Government delivering on our manifesto commitments to strengthen European security, support growth and reinforce NATO.
Implementation is progressing. Since May, the Defence Secretary has held discussions with the European Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, where they discussed our ambition to explore the potential for enhanced UK-EU cooperation under SAFE. The Foreign Secretary has also held talks with the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas on the geopolitical challenges that face our continent. We look forward to the foreign and security policy dialogue between the High Representative, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary this autumn.
In addition, officials from across Government continue to hold consultations with their EU counterparts on a range of issues, including but not limited to Iran, Russia-Ukraine, and tackling irregular migration.
As the Defence Secretary has previously said to this House, he will ensure that any UK commitment– whether financial or non-financial – provides value for the UK taxpayer and supports our defence goals. We will continue to prioritise engagement and cooperation on the issues that are most important in helping to safeguard European security and prosperity – all in support of this government’s NATO First defence policy.
The Defence Secretary and I look forward to continuing to update the House on developments. The Defence Secretary’s offer still stands that he is happy to arrange a discussion with the Member of Parliament for South Suffolk who has shown such interest in these topics.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the publication MHCLG: spending over £25,000, March 2025, published on 28 April 2025, if she will publish the full specification of the research commissioned from TPXimpact Limited on Research Services.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The spend relates to the build of new technical capability (MS Azure cloud platform) for data science, engineering & analytics work.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what intellectual property rights NHS England retains over (a) data models, (b) ontologies and (c) analytics solutions produced within the Federated Data Platform.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Within the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), the National Health Service retains the Intellectual Property of the solutions it funds or develops, including all associated data models, ontologies, including the NHS Canonical data model, products, and analytical solutions.
Under the FDP-Associated Services Agreement between NHS England and Palantir, background Intellectual Property, prior to entering into the agreement, remains the property of the respective party.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what systems are in place within (a) Border Force and (b) her Department to monitor the international procurement of poisons; and whether those systems are applied consistently across all countries.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We remain committed to stopping dangerous drugs – including poisons – from entering the country. Our Border Force Officers continue to work to stop illegal drugs by making more, higher-quantity seizures than in previous years, using advanced technology, data analytics, and greater intelligence, derived from close working relationships with police, the National Crime Agency, and international partners.
It would not be in the interest of national security to disclose specific systems in place, nor further information regarding intelligence gathering and sharing.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NHS England is taking to verify that derivative analytical outputs from the NHS Federated Digital Platform cannot be reverse‑engineered to reveal identifiable patient data.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All analytics products created by NHS England, including those developed on the NHS Federated Data Platform, are subject to a full Data Privacy Impact Assessment (DPIA) as part of the design and development process, with further information available at the following link:
All data used by the NHS Federated Data Platform integrates with advanced Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET). This has been procured from a separate supplier to ensure independence and to mitigate any potential conflicts of interest. This technology ensures that data is processed in a secure and privacy-preserving manner.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether NHS‑funded analytics solutions created on the Federated Data Platform have been (a) patented and (b) registered by (i) Palantir Technologies and (ii) its subsidiaries.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Within the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), where the National Health Service commissions and funds the development of solutions, the intellectual property of these solutions remains with the NHS.
Under the FDP-Associated Services Agreement between NHS England and Palantir, background intellectual property, prior to entering into the agreement, remains the property of the respective party.