The Lord Bishop of Oxford

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to her place and, like others, send good wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. I welcome very much, as others have done, the three aspirations in Fit for the Future. I think that they are significant and that they are the right ones. I think they are bold and visionary. However, while I welcome the move from analogue to digital, for me, the document raises significant questions. We are looking to build a National Health Service which cares for whole people, not machines. We need, therefore, to be concerned for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, at every stage of life, across the NHS. That demands continuous investment in people, including, of course, chaplains. I have specific questions around the ethics, governance and provision of technology. Where will process and governance responsibility lie for data storage? Will the Government continue to outsource this to Palantir or another provider, or will we build and maintain the NHS’s own secure provision? I am mindful that our data stored by the NHS is a hugely valuable commercial asset. Where will the ethical debates take place around, for example, the proposal that newborns will undergo wholesale genetic sequencing from birth from 2035, which seems to raise massive issues for our society? The document as it stands, it seems to me, is wholly positive about technology—it is techno-optimism. Will the Minister please balance this by telling us about the safeguards, reservations and governance that the technology needs in order to deliver the human, humane and kind care that we need?