Health Bill

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

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.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

I have had a look at the parliamentary record; Healthwatch has been mentioned over 100 times in the past five years. One key area of focus is its reporting and the insights it provides to Members of Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that whatever replaces Healthwatch must retain that research focus?

[Martin Wrigley]

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. 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. 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.

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[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

I know of a quite frail diabetic patient with cancer, who underwent several operations as well as complicated chemo in London. He eventually decided that he was well enough to take a short holiday, so he went to Cornwall on the train. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving he was found in a state of collapse by his daughter, and taken to the nearest hospital late on a Saturday night. The doctors had no access to his medical notes, and no answer when they called the hospital in London, so they were puzzled. That situation is familiar to doctors. Patients are incredulous when they are told that we are unable to see all their medical records: “Surely everything is on the computer?”

As a surgeon before becoming an MP, I worked in at least three different hospitals. There was no compatibility between the records, which meant that transferring care was complicated and hazardous. I would be asked to advise on a patient from another hospital, relying on a dictated note from the referring doctor, but I could not access the clinical records, the results of investigations such as the pathology test, scans or, crucially, the operating records. Consultations were delayed as I stared at creaking computers, with numerous software programmes, each individually protected by ever-changing and forgettable passwords, that slowly booted up. That obviously needs to change.

I would link the NHS number to an unique single patient record. I would give ownership of the record to the patient, and let the patient be the custodian and the gatekeeper. That is the truly revolutionary idea. If someone could easily look at their medical record, with appropriate physician safeguards, they could monitor everything—blood pressure, heart rate—and perhaps there would be an incentive for them to look after their health a little better.

Let us imagine for a moment the power of anonymised medical data for a population of 70 million people. The NHS is perhaps the largest complete set of health data on a whole population in the world. That is a huge resource for informing health policy and medical research. By tracking the health outcomes of millions of our fellow citizens, we can sort out all kinds of diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and mental health disorders. I can think of no greater innovation, or more helpful measure to improve the health care of this nation, than a single patient record.

[Martin Wrigley]

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.

[Peter Prinsley]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I am aware that in various bits of the country such systems do exist. I would like to see a single patient record that is genuinely single, so that when my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who is sitting next to me, writes something in the record, I can see it, and when I write in my record, he can see it, and no letters are passing back and forth between us. That is why I am sure that legislating for the mandatory single record is what we must do, and as a surgeon who has worked for 40 years in the NHS, I will do everything I can to help.

Health Bill

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

Let me start by taking up the theme of maternity, which has already been mentioned by a number of Members. I welcome the Government’s commitment to instating a maternity commissioner. I sit on the expert reference group—that is what we are called—that feeds into the maternity and neonatal taskforce, so I see how the Government are trying to pull all these different issues together. The Health and Social Care Committee has heard repeatedly, and across a number of inquiries, how important this issue is, and we need someone who is independent of Government and able to knit it all together.

Our Committee’s “Black Maternal Health” report heard how workforce shortages are undermining efforts to improve maternity care, data is lacking, and there is a culture in which women, particularly black women, are not listened to. Investment and training are needed to tackle that.

The “First 1000 Days” report found that the UK has some of the worst early years health outcomes in Europe, including in infant mortality, and we have called for proper targets for early years professionals in the long-lost workforce plan. As an aside, where is the workforce plan? I would love to see it. Locally, Oxford University hospitals provide maternity care for my residents, and indeed for my own family—baby took their first steps this weekend, finally! It was a momentous occasion.

I also reflect genuinely that there are people in my National Childbirth Trust class who did not have as good an experience as we did. They have been proactively contacted by the hospital to have an apology and an explanation given for their awful, traumatic birth, and they did not even complain. In part, that is a result of the CQC inspections and, more importantly, the inclusion by Baroness Amos of OUH and John Radcliffe hospital in her report.

I toured the hospital again this summer and heard specifically from trust leaders and midwives. They are doing everything they can to respond to all the criticisms being levelled at them by families, but they told me that there is only so much that they can do without a new building. Baroness Amos’s report said:

“The maternity and neonatal units sit across multiple floors… We saw delivery suites that didn’t have windows, that were cold, small and cramped and had pillars in the middle of them affecting where equipment could be placed”.

A large number of the suites did not have en suites. Can you imagine what it must be like to give birth in those rooms? As the Government knit together their action plan, I beg them not to forget investment, particularly capital investment, when they empower the commissioner to do their good work.

Let me move on to a few other amendments. I support the work to tackle health inequalities in new clauses 90 and 91. Our Committee hears over and over again that if we want to unlock productivity in the NHS, that is where we need to focus. I also support the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) and his cross-party new clause 34, which echoes the findings of my Committee. The Government really need to think again when it comes to Palantir and instead supercharge the capability of UK-based companies.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

On that very point, does my hon. Friend agree that the recent NHS cost-benefit analysis showing that the Palantir project will cost £1.1 billion and deliver benefits of £800 million—a net loss of £300 million for the NHS—underlines the fact that we need to get rid of it now?

[Layla Moran]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he has been a doughty campaigner on this issue, as have other members of the Committee, including the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman). We also know that much of the data is based on the data being taken from Chelsea and Westminster hospital, and not much else across the country. We have a lot of questions about that contract, hence why we came to the same conclusion.

However, I primarily urge the Government please to consider new clause 85, in the name of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft), which would impose duties on ICBs for delivering education, health and care plans. In my constituency we held a roundtable to provide evidence for our own hearing on this issue—by the way, this was based on a recommendation that came out of the Education Select Committee’s work on EHCPs, so we decided to take up the “H” bit. In that roundtable, I heard movingly from families who kept saying things like, “Everything is a battle.” One child, Stefan, suffers from multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, which affects his hips, and needs support to get around. He is very bright and desperately wants to learn. His mother was at that roundtable, and told me that, exceptionally and against school policy, he is allowed to keep a phone on him. There is no one whom the school can employ to make sure he can be wheeled from class to class, so instead what happens—and mother and school have done everything they possibly can—is that Stefan rings his mum so that she can come from home and deliver him to his next class. Ridiculously, this is the kind of thing that goes to tribunal, and then those tribunals cannot hold the ICBs to the same level of accountability as local authorities. The whole thing is nonsensical.

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[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

My remarks will focus mainly on new clause 69, which is in my name. Getting rid of NHS England is one of the best things that this Government have done. As working clinicians, we can at least now get away from so much admin and management.

My amendment is a simple one about self-care and health literacy. Demand for healthcare has increased enormously. Since 2019, for example, GP consultations in Stroud have gone up 30%. When I started work as a GP, patients saw me on average three times a year; it is now about eight times a year. Indeed, A&E attendance has gone up 20% over the last decade, yet the health of the nation remains the same. This is the demand side of the NHS that we very rarely discuss, and this is what I am asking the Secretary of State to address.

Let me turn to the causes of this increase in demand. There is a concept in medicine called the symptom iceberg. Most of us get symptoms every day, but we do not go to the doctor. We only go to the doctor when we have certain symptoms, and it is a very small number of symptoms, but that has increased over the last 20 years. Then there is the role of something that we call lay referrals; people used to have mums who lived next door, but now they are often much further away. We are socially isolated in an atomised society. We also have a much higher expectation for our health. We cannot fault that, but it means that, for example, people go to the doctor with very minor things. There are also factors such as AI. In my surgery, we use AI, but I believe that creates its own demands. There is also good old Dr Google, who in this country is consulted over 50 million times every year—and those who go to Dr Google usually end up thinking that they have cancer or need an ambulance, so that is clearly driving demand.

There are also doctor factors. If we carry on treating sore throats with antibiotics, people will carry on coming back. Earaches generally get better, and people do not usually need to see a doctor for headaches. We are over-diagnosing and over-medicalising everything. NHS factors includes the algorithms for 111 and litigation. I would also like to talk about health literacy. That means knowing about our health, and understanding that we are not always in totally good health, but we do not have to consult the health service just because we are feeling a little bit low or a little bit tired.

One of my colleagues in Stroud, Dr Hugh van’t Hoff, started Facts4Life, a school-based education service that goes into schools. In the last 10 years, he has worked with over 200 primary schools. He has shown that if we teach young children about health and how it is normal sometimes to feel tired or have a sore throat—stuff like that—we can reduce consultations in the NHS. We can also teach children how to understand information on the internet, so that when they look at statistics, they know what they mean, instead of thinking, “Ooh, my risk of cancer has been doubled by doing this.” That is really important.

We are also over-medicalising patients. In this country, 9 million patients in England alone—one in five adults—are on antidepressants. That is a scandal.

[Martin Wrigley]

On interpreting statistics, does the hon. Gentleman agree that when it comes to data, GP confidentiality—in respect of the Palantir federated data platform, for example—is critical, certainly when we come to the single patient record, and that the Bill should not reduce confidentiality or data privacy to achieve the single patient record?

[Dr Opher]

I thank the hon. Member for that comment. He is right. NHS and GP data is a massive resource for our scientists in this country, and I agree with him that it should be owned by the UK. It should be a sovereign wealth issue. I would like to ensure that we realise that over time.

I will return to over-medicalisation. I would like to try to divert patients with mild to moderate mental health symptoms to social prescribing, such as access to nature, arts and culture and exercise—and indeed comedy. Let us try to reduce that figure of 9 million on antidepressants, so that people do not have to come back for review. There would be fewer harms, such as suicide, in the first couple of weeks. Let us also look again at neurodivergence, and try to look for a way of not medicalising so many children with the condition.

If we are serious about reducing waiting lists and making the NHS sustainable for the future, we cannot focus only on supply; we must address rising demand, too. Giving people the knowledge and confidence to look after their own health will empower them, free up clinicians to care for those who need them most, and ultimately build a healthier population. That is what new clause 69 seeks to achieve. I urge the Government to accept it.

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[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to my new clause 108, because the public rightly expect any company entrusted to operate within our national health service to meet basic standards of ethical conduct, both inside and outside the NHS. In my experience as parliamentary lead on the Hillsborough law, I regularly met members of the public who were shocked that a duty of candour that would compel public officials to tell the truth to the people they served did not already exist. I believe that many of my constituents will be equally shocked that the basic principles of ethical accountability are not already enshrined in Government procurement policy, but they are not.

New clause 108 is not radical. It is a straightforward safeguard requiring the Secretary of State to review the NHS procurement framework and ensure that companies with proven involvement in violations of international law or breaches of internationally accepted standards of business conduct cannot be offered public contracts. Those standards include the UN guiding principles on business and human rights and the OECD guidelines on multinational enterprises. What exactly is there to disagree with? They ask the bare minimum of businesses: that do not contribute to harm, that they carry out proper human rights due diligence and that are transparent about how they handle the data of the people they serve. Yet we currently have a company operating at the heart of our NHS infrastructure, through the federated data platform, that fails to meet that basic standard. I am talking about the US tech firm Palantir.

Palantir has consistently refused to publish a formal human rights impact assessment for its software used in Israel’s assault on Gaza, in violent ICE detentions in America, and in its use of NHS staff and patient data. Such a lack of transparency is not a technicality but a serious failure to meet the standards in the UN and OECD guidelines. I first raised concerns about Palantir’s NHS contract in a letter to the then health Secretary in August 2023, and these concerns have been echoed by many, many others. I am pleased that Parliament has started to push back, with calls from numerous Committees for Palantir to be dropped.

I also fully support new clause 34, tabled by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley). Patients trust the NHS with the most sensitive information they possess.

[Martin Wrigley]

Does the hon. Member agree that it is a fundamental principle of anything like the SPR that it must have privacy by design at the centre of it, and that therefore a firm such as Palantir—which has a US, slightly cavalier and somewhat casual attitude to how data privacy should be controlled—should not be allowed anywhere near it?

[Ian Byrne]

I fully agree; I have signed the hon. Gentleman’s amendments and we have been in many Committees speaking on this issue.

New clause 108 provides a proportionate and evidence-based mechanism to address this issue. The new clause does not name or target any individual company. It would establish a clear and principled test, rooted in international law and internationally accepted standards, that every contractor must meet. If a company such as Palantir cannot meet that test, it should never hold contracts in our NHS or with Government Departments. I have repeatedly urged the Government to trigger the 2027 break clause in Palantir’s contract to operate the federated data platform. I make that call again tonight.

It is only through a measure such as new clause 108 that we can ensure that companies such as Palantir cannot operate in our public services again. It should be accepted, but the principle behind it should not end with the NHS. It should apply across every Government Department, led by the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office’s report on social value and procurement, published last month, was welcome, but it contained a glaring omission: a clear ethical foundation. My clause would provide that crucial and much-needed safeguard, ensuring a legislative framework that prevents companies with records like Palantir’s from securing public contracts in the future.

Last week, I visited the Vatican and spoke with officials about how the United Kingdom could lead the world in the ethical use of artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. Tonight, my Government have a real opportunity to put a marker down and demonstrate that Britain intends to be at the forefront of that global movement. I look forward to helping them achieve that if they adopt my new clause. Let us make it clear that scrutiny, transparency and respect for human rights are not optional extras in public procurement, but conditions of entry for any company seeking to serve NHS workers and patients. That is what new clause 108 calls for, and that is the change that will be welcomed in Liverpool West Derby, across our country and, indeed, in the halls of the Vatican. I look forward to the Government’s response.

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A lot of constituents have contacted me about Palantir—both patients and GPs, who are very worried about how the contract works and how Palantir operates. Medical data is hugely sensitive. People have to be confident that it is being managed by a company that they can trust. Palantir does not meet those criteria. It is an incredibly expensive contract, as we have heard, and it does not deliver the value for money that we need. More importantly, people do not trust it, and we are talking about their medical records, so the contract has to be with a company they trust.

[Martin Wrigley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that element of trust is even more important when we get the single patient record, and critical to enabling GPs and medical professionals everywhere to use it, and patients to trust it?

[Charlotte Cane]

I absolutely agree. The single patient record is so important to make the NHS work efficiently and effectively, and to help it treat patients better. To achieve that, patients have to trust that the data is being well protected, and I am afraid that a lot of the people I talk to, including GPs—who are obviously critical in convincing patients that Palantir is safe—do not trust it. We have to pull out of the contract with Palantir. Will the Minister please consider that, please consider the issues faced by rural areas, and please, please, please get us some NHS dentists in Ely and East Cambridgeshire?

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[Karin Smyth]

I am going to move on, because there is a lot to get through.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) made a powerful speech, based on his own experience and the terrible experiences of his constituents. I will write to him about what we want to do with ICBs to make that situation better.

I now turn to new clause 56, tabled by the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett). I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for her ongoing work on, and interest in, carers throughout the passage of this Bill. I can assure the House that the Government fully recognise the importance of supporting carers’ health and wellbeing, including ensuring that they can take breaks from their caring responsibilities where needed. The Care Act 2014 already includes duties to assess and address carers’ current and future needs, and of course, we want to ensure that carers get the full benefit of the single patient record. To achieve this, we intend to use our regulation powers, which are already in the Bill.

The topic of inequalities has been highlighted a lot today. We are committed to ensuring that local areas are empowered to make decisions, tackle the specific health challenges they face and make real progress on health inequalities. I want to reassure the House that reducing health inequalities remains a priority for this Government. I know that the Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, and the Committee as a whole, takes a great interest in this issue, and we are committed to working with them. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip for their championing of this important issue and for our meeting last week.

I am not, however, convinced about new clause 91. Our focus is, and must remain, on delivering improvements in health outcomes, supporting prevention and tackling the causes of ill health, rather than creating additional statutory red tape. We already have a wide range of duties from the 2006 Act, and we have a new duty on combined authorities. There was a duty on ICBs in the Health and Care Act 2022, and there is a duty on foundation trusts. We have the public sector equality duty, as well as our commitment in the 10-year health plan. Again, the issue is making it work and empowering local leaders to do just that.

I commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) on the APPG on sickle cell and thalassaemia, and I will write to her specifically on the issues she raised. She talked about specialised commissioning, a topic that was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald). We know that this is an ongoing concern across many areas, and I commit to keeping in touch with them and with other Members.

Turning to women’s health—including mental health—and maternity services, again, I can assure the House that this is a priority for the Secretary of State. That is why we published the action-focused renewed women’s health strategy. It is why we are undertaking a single national action plan on maternal health, overseen by the national maternity and neonatal taskforce, to drive improvements where it matters to families, clinicians and other experts. I know that many Members of this House are committed to improving mental health, but I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) for all her work in this area as the national maternity adviser.

Opposition Members mentioned the Hughes report, and I assure the House that the Government recognise the importance of providing a response. I do not have time to go into all the ongoing work at the moment, but I commit to doing so at the earliest opportunity. [Interruption.] The Conservatives had a long time. The hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) says that they were about to do it before the election, but that is not what we found when we came into power. The Conservatives left us a lot of work to do in this and many other areas, but we are committed to doing it.

Fertility services and reducing inequalities in maternity services has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) and the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), who has been a tireless advocate in this area, as have many others. I have recently written to him. NICE guidelines inform how ICBs should commission in this area, but I know that things are not uniformly implemented. We will continue to work with ICBs to evaluate the next steps.

There was a lot of discussion on primary care, and dental access across the country in particular. We are committed to rebuilding dentistry in England, but actions speak louder than words. We are making great strides in improving access, ensuring an urgent care safety net across the country, reforming the dental contract and developing a 10-year workforce plan. More broadly, we think it is right that under this Bill, primary medical services become the responsibility of ICBs. They have the right knowledge of their areas to make commissioning decisions, and that includes on eye care. They have responsibility for all primary medical services, but rightly they will be accountable to the Secretary of State for their performance.

The right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) is right that we will say that he could have dealt with the issues he raises while he was in power, but we do not always say that, and he is absolutely right about continuity of care. I have also visited the practice he talks about in Horfield in Bristol, and not just because I was on the primary care trust board when the 2004 changes happened. Broadly, Bristol does have different standards on some of these issues, and that highlights our point. We do not need to put some of these provisions in legislation. Exactly this sort of good practice can be shared in local systems through neighbourhood care plans, neighbourhood work and the work in primary care networks.

The single patient record is fundamental to the Government’s mission to create a modern, joined-up NHS that puts patients at the centre of their care. On amendments 26, 42 and 43, I assure Members that the overarching purpose of making regulations to create and operate the single patient record is limited to the direct care of patients, and clause 51 is already explicit about that. Crucially, the clause does not create any new data sharing gateways for secondary purposes such as planning and commissioning, so these amendments are not necessary. On data safeguards, the security and privacy of people’s health and social care data are paramount. As Members would expect, we will build the strongest safeguards into the record. On new clause 32, I can assure Members that the SPR will be designed to protect personal data by default, with the highest standards of cyber-security and information governance ensuring that only the right people can access the right information at the right time and only for the right reasons.

Finally, I have heard how important it is that the single patient record is accessible and inclusive. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for amendment 87 and the important work she is doing to publicise this hugely important area. I assure her and Members that we are confident that the Bill is drafted to enable information related to support needs and reasonable accommodations to be included in the SPR. The Department will have regard to the accessible information standard as the SPR is developed.

We are also committed to tackling digital exclusion. We have considered that as part of the single patient record equality impact assessment, and work is already under way to help address barriers around connectivity, skills and confidence. I heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East said about the need to engage him and others about the single patient record as we go forward.

On the federated data platform, decisions about public contracts must be made through fair, open and non-discriminatory processes. That is governed by UK procurement law, which recognises certain international treaty obligations. NHS England is reviewing the federated data platform contract to determine whether it should continue with standard contract management processes. It will look at evidence of delivery and the impact of the platform, and that should be the basis on which a contract continuation is decided.

[Martin Wrigley]

Will the Minister give way?

[Karin Smyth]

I will not. We have heard a lot from the hon. Gentleman, and I want to make some clear points to the House this evening.

We have heard a great deal of discussion about commercial processes, and Members—including the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley)—have raised important points about data security, governance and ethical standards of contracts, and support for domestic suppliers and for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. Contracts involving NHS data and digital services must be subject to proper scrutiny. The Government’s approach is to assess risks on the basis of the nature of the data, service and supplier access. Crucially, we already have the tools that we need to carry out appropriate due diligence through legal powers and robust contractual provisions.

I agree with the spirit of new clause 108, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne). I fully recognise the importance of ensuring that the NHS does not inadvertently support exploitation or rights abuses. UK legislation already incorporates some international laws: for example, the Human Rights Act 1998 incorporates the European convention on human rights into UK law. Similarly, we can use existing legislation and guidance to exclude suppliers from NHS procurements. Both the Procurement Act 2023 and the provider selection regime allow us to exclude providers when there has been serious misconduct or illegality. For instance, we could exclude a supplier under the Procurement Act for breaches of modern slavery and/or human trafficking laws. We have very high standards and expect all suppliers —including whichever companies go on to provide the single patient record—to meet them.

On a related note, the Chancellor has already written to the Secretary of State to ask that the NHS procurement better support British industry. In the light of that, the Secretary of State has commissioned, within the health family, a review of strategic procurement pipelines to find opportunities for the new social value model to support more British jobs, skills and innovation. The First Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), who is leading work on procurement across Government, would be happy to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby as part of this important work as it progresses, and I can assure him that the actions that we take will be fully in line with the principle of international law.