Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I have answered those questions. I say politely to the Father of the House that the partygate scandal, which is not the subject of today’s urgent question, is not a trivial scandal, and it is important to put that clearly on the record. It undermined confidence in the Government at a time when we were being asked to do something that the decision makers were not doing themselves. I agree with him that transparency is necessary and important. The MOD publishes its procurement decisions in the usual transparent way, continuing the theme from when his party was in office. We will continue to do that, and I am happy to continue to take questions about the transparency of this contract.

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Given the scale of the contract—it is for almost a quarter of a billion pounds—and the fact that Mandelson had had a contract with Palantir, and attended a meeting in Washington with the Prime Minister and Palantir after he became the ambassador, questions inevitably arise. May I ask the Minister explicitly whether all the papers relevant to the Prime Minister’s visit and the contract will be made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee, as we believed we decided last Wednesday? I am aware that at least five or six senior civil servants in the Ministry of Defence have gone to work with Palantir. Can we have an assurance that there are proper firewalls in place to protect the interests of the public, as against the private interests of Palantir?

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend asks valid questions. I say to him clearly that this Government will stand by and honour the agreement on the publication of information that was struck last week during the debate on the Humble Address. If there are documents from the Ministry of Defence that need to be published, we will continue to support the cross-Government effort to do so. On employees, when anyone who has worked in defence moves over to a defence contractor, be it Palantir or any other, we make it clear that they have certain obligations, and there are certain requirements. Palantir employs an awful lot of UK veterans; it has made employing veterans a point of principle. It is a good principle, and that should be done by all defence companies, in my view, but I take his point and I agree with it.