Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)

That last point is fundamental: we must have trust. If we do not get trust, we lose the ability to use what is an extraordinary resource, so that has to be part of what is looked at here. It is absolutely part of what the board of UK Biobank is doing in its review, and it needs a very clear look. When it started, UK Biobank was at the forefront of protection. It had very robust mechanisms to scrutinise researchers and institutions and make sure that this was properly looked after. What has happened is that things have overtaken UK Biobank and it has not kept up, whereas others have put in a secure data platform to try to deal with these issues, so there is a question there. Part of this is because of the sheer size of the database, but it is not excusable, and this needs to be sorted out. Going back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, it is theoretically possible to re-identify people. It is not at all easy, and it is a low probability, but it is not zero probability. Therefore, I agree with the point that this is a real wake-up call for researchers. We need to make sure that we build the right trust in. We are putting together the Health Data Research Service, with this at the very heart of what it is going to do to make sure that there is trusted access to this type of data.