Jeremy Corbyn

There are many ironies surrounding Peter Mandelson. The most useful thing he ever said was that he hated me, wanted nothing to do with me and woke up every morning trying to get rid of me when I was leader of the Labour party. I take that as a badge of honour, actually, because I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and the politics that went with him. Mandelson managed to land a deal for Palantir. That was his achievement, and in his farewell letter to embassy staff, he singled out that one achievement. He wrote that the UK leaves the relationship with the United States “in a really good condition, with a magnificent state visit and the new US-UK technology partnership—my personal pride and joy that will help write the next chapter of the special relationship—set for next week.” Obviously the visit went ahead without him. Palantir confirmed that it would invest £1.5 billion in the UK and expand its Ministry of Defence contract to £750 million over five years, replacing a £75 million, three-year arrangement. The deal was folded into the technology prosperity deal that Trump and the Prime Minister signed at Chequers the next day. In only a short time as ambassador, he embroiled us in all this stuff with Palantir and set up this technology agreement with the USA. As we all know, because we hear it from our constituents, people who use the NHS are alarmed that Palantir will get hold of their medical records. They are concerned that the company will get hold of the entirety of the NHS and social security records—in other words, crucial personal information on every single person that has lived or died in this country since 1948. Are we seriously saying that we, as a society and country, are incapable of setting up our own technology arrangement? I do want data sharing within the NHS. I want it to be the case that when someone goes to the doctor, they can access that person’s records quickly and sort out what is wrong with them. I want that technology in place for A&E departments, but I do not want those records to be shared with a company that is busy advising Israel on how it will go about its bombardment of Gaza and trying to get hold of other contracts all around the world Do we have to mortgage ourselves to an American multinational that will have control of and access to vast amounts of data? Surely to goodness, we have enough ambition and ability to develop our own systems within the NHS. We are all proud of the NHS, but let us not destroy it by handing it over to the private sector. Let us not destroy the whole philosophy behind it by giving it over to those who will make money out of it rather than deal with the obvious health issues that so many people face. I hope that the lesson from all this is that when the political system becomes corrupted by lack of principle and the amounts of money made available to people—the private donations that are still made by private health interests and others to Members and the parties represented in this House—we are all the losers; democracy is the loser, and ultimately the price is paid by the poorest and most vulnerable people within our society.