Luke Pollard MP: speeches

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Speeches

11 Feb 2026 · New Medium Helicopter Programme · Hansard source
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It is a very nice tie.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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As I have been clear to the House in a number of answers, we will continue to have a security and defence relationship with the United States, and it is in our national interests to do so. We are a party that takes defence and security very seriously, which is something that I hope the hon. Gentleman’s party would do more of, although I have much respect for him. I will continue to ensure that we get the best services for our armed forces as we move to warfighting readiness. I have answered the question about minutes, and it will be for Downing Street to publish that in due course.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I am afraid that looking for deliverables ahead of a state visit is pretty standard practice, and it is something that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government looked at just as much as we do. We will continue to have conversations with our ambassadors in all circumstances, as he would expect. The right hon. Gentleman raises questions that should be answered by the publication of the information. We as a Government have committed to publish the relevant information that the House asked for last week, and we stand by that.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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As I said in reply to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), that is a matter for Downing Street to publish in due course. I am afraid that I have spent the last three days in Saudia Arabia, so I am just catching up on these events. I have been clear about where that information will come from, and I point my hon. Friend in that direction.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is right that investigations are under way. As the Government made clear to the House last week, we will co-operate fully with those investigations, and we will ensure that the information that the House requires to be published is published in a way that creates the transparency that we all seek. There are already safeguards in place around the use of artificial intelligence in Ministry of Defence decision making, and we are looking at ways to enable new opportunities, especially for UK firms, given the growing requirement in the Ministry of Defence for faster decision making and better data management. I understand her concerns about AI and safeguards, and I will continue to update the House as the AI strategy that Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published is rolled out.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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The right hon. Gentleman is right; it is important that people can have confidence in the system, including the procurement system. As I have set out to the House, the decision to extend the contract with Palantir was originally signed in 2022 by the previous Government, of which I think he was a part at the time. That decision was made by the Secretary of State, and by the Secretary of State alone. I do want to see more British AI companies working in defence—something we have been very clear about. Indeed, I think even the last Government set out an ambition to do more in that space. We have stepped up to make sure we can grow our own indigenous AI industry, with its software and services able to be onboarded into a more AI-friendly defence environment, because AI provides a decision advantage for our forces that is necessary to keep our country safe. However, I take very seriously the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made, and when we publish the information that we have committed to publish, that will hopefully answer some of his questions.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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As I said in my first answer, Peter Mandelson had no influence on the decision to award this contract; it was a decision made by the Secretary of State, and it was his decision alone. As the shadow Secretary of State well knows, this enterprise agreement builds on the one that Conservative Ministers signed with Palantir back in 2022, and he knows that the MOD uses Palantir tools and technology on a daily basis to support operations and wider data analytics. I am sure he is not suggesting that we should not be maintaining access to those vital capabilities. Is he saying that his Government were wrong to formalise the relationship with Palantir in their 2022 agreement? I do not think he is. It is really important that we publish the information. Last time I was in Washington, the then ambassador unfortunately was not available to meet, or was not there, but the Prime Minister has been clear at the Dispatch Box that the public and the House deserve transparency. We intend to publish as much material as we can, as soon as reasonably possible. The Cabinet Office is working with the Met police and Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to ensure that the release of any documents does not prejudice the Met investigation, or the UK’s national security and international relations. That process is under way, and that is in addition to the other actions that the Prime Minister has already taken.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I appreciate my hon. Friend’s direction of travel and passion. We followed due process, in accordance with the Procurement Act, in awarding those contracts. As I have clearly set out, we will comply with the agreement made last week on publication of data and documents.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I am afraid that the role of defence is to disrupt our adversaries and to secure our national security. To do that, we possess capabilities that can disrupt, deter and, if necessary, defeat our adversaries. That includes killing our adversaries at times— [ Interruption. ]
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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The Palantir enterprise agreement was a direct award, justified under the Procurement Act 2023. The agreement covers existing services and areas in which there is a robust technical justification for using Palantir products and services for defence outcomes. All procurement procedures were followed, and a transparency notice was published.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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The right hon. Gentleman will have seen the photographs that appeared on No. 10’s Twitter feed, to which I referred in response to the earlier question about the publication of information. He will also recall—perhaps from his time as a Defence Minister—that in 2021 the then Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, also met Alex Karp.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for the inadvertent promotion he has given me. He is right to talk about the necessity of ensuring that political donations are transparent and in order. That is an area in which the Government have already set out some changes, and I want our politics to learn lessons from the experiences of the past to make sure that donations are clear and transparent, which was not always the case under the last Government. However, I take seriously the issue that he has raised, and if he writes to me with the detail of that particular donation, I would be happy to look into it.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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We signed a contract with a supplier to provide a service for which there is clear military need and clear utility, in order to strengthen our armed forces. We keep all contracts, not just those with Palantir, under constant review to ensure that they are delivering what they were signed up to deliver, and we will continue to do that. We want more companies to provide AI services, so we are looking at how we can support more British AI companies to interact with defence. We recently stood up the Defence Office for Small Business Growth because there are many AI companies that are not yet defence AI companies but could be, and we are trying to make it easier for them to access defence contracts.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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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.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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The hon. Lady’s position would be stronger if the Greens were not so soft on defence. We will continue to invest in our national security, and we will invest in the contracts that keep our troops and our country safe. That will involve investing not only in UK firms, but in international partners at the same time. I have been clear at the Dispatch Box that we will comply fully with the agreement made on the Humble Address last week, and we will publish information in the right way in due course. I hope that will be able to provide more of the answers that the hon. Lady is looking for.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s long-standing position on a number of the items he asks about. I have been clear to the House today that we will continue to work with our US friends—they are our closest defence and security partner. Where appropriate, we will look at working with US technology firms that can provide best-in-class products that deliver increased defence for our armed forces and our nation. We will continue to do that, as well as investing in UK firms.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we should look at security, data security and the opportunities here. In the strategic defence review, we set out our direction of travel in defence, and investing in new technologies, including artificial intelligence, is key to securing our national security. I want to see the best-in-class products used by our armed forces, and I also want to see more British small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, being able to access this area. We have set up the Defence Office for Small Business Growth, and we are looking in particular at how we can support small defence AI companies to onboard their software in a whole range of defence utilities. We will continue to do so as we look to spend more of our rising defence budget with UK SMEs.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s focus on that particular contract. As a Defence Minister, I do not know about Home Office policing contracts that were secured by individual forces, but I can direct him to my colleagues in the Home Office, who might be able to help more.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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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.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I am absolutely happy that we have signed a contract and conducted that process in the appropriate way. Scrutiny of that process is not something I am afraid of. I actually think it will show that the decision was made by the Secretary of State, and by the Secretary of State alone, and that the extension of the contract—which was originally signed by the Conservative Government in 2022—delivers a benefit to the United Kingdom and secured £1.5 billion of investment in the UK. It also supplies onboarding routes for more SMEs and makes the UK Palantir’s European headquarters, which will help to support our economy and our armed forces in the future. As I have mentioned a few times, publication of the minutes is a matter for Downing Street, but it is pretty standard for Ministers to meet defence suppliers.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I appreciate my hon. Friend’s passion on this matter but, as I have set out to the House, we will continue to maintain a close defence and security relationship with the United States—it is in our national security interests to do so. In signing any agreement with a US company, just as would be the case with a French, German or Australian company, we ensure that the agreement is in the UK’s national interest, and that controls are in place on the sovereignty of data, particularly with AI contracts. We will continue to ensure that those standards are upheld in all contracts, but we will also continue to work with international partners where no UK provider could deliver that work, or where the services they offer are in excess or deliver a defence capability faster, better or cheaper than one provided elsewhere.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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We take vendor lock-in very seriously. We will build a more comprehensive AI framework in the Ministry of Defence; we will be using AI more frequently in more aspects of defence, just as the wider economy is doing. We want to ensure that our data sovereign. Our contract with Palantir retains the sovereignty of that data, and of decision making about the systems that the data sits on. That data resides in the United Kingdom, and no changes can be made by Palantir without the consent of the MOD. It is because we take the data issues so seriously that that is locked into the contract.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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The hon. Gentleman will have heard the answer I just gave to the Chair of the Defence Committee about the procurement process. As I set out, the decision was made by the Secretary of State alone; he has been clear about that. The hon. Gentleman will know that the UK has a strong security and defence partnership with the United States. We are clear that we will continue to invest in that strong security and defence partnership, while we deepen partnerships with our European friends and allies further afield. On data, UK defence data used and developed in Palantir software remains sovereign to the UK and under the control of the MOD, and it resides in the United Kingdom. We have clear, contractual controls in place to ensure that, and we have control of the data system that Palantir software sits on. No change can be made to that without the consent of the MOD.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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I am a big fan of the hon. Member, too. I have been clear in my answers today that the decision to extend the 2022 contract signed under the previous Government was made by the Secretary of State alone. It was his decision to do so. We are procuring new AI capabilities to speed up our delivery of outcomes within defence. We know that our adversaries are using AI in how they position themselves, and it is necessary that we do so, too. He is right that as we deploy more artificial intelligence, not just in defence, but across our wider economy, we need to secure a level of confidence in the contracts and in the technology itself. That is a bigger debate than this one, but I understand precisely where the hon. Gentleman is coming from.
10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source
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Palantir is a strategic supplier to the Ministry of Defence, providing secure data integration, analytics and AI platforms that help to support operational planning and decision making. In 2022, the Conservative Government signed a three-year enterprise agreement with Palantir, in light of the growing significance of faster operational decision making, and the impact that that technology has had in operations, including in Ukraine. This Government negotiated a new enterprise agreement to update the one signed in 2022, and that was published in a transparency note in December last year. As part of the development of the new enterprise agreement, the MOD negotiated a strategic partnership with Palantir last September. The SPA reaffirms the strong relationship developed between UK defence and Palantir over the past decade, and includes new commitments that this Government secured from Palantir, including £1.5 billion investment into the UK, a new UK defence tech SME mentoring scheme to help companies grow and access the US market, and a commitment that London is to be the company’s European defence headquarters. This Government took over what the Tories started in 2022, but we made it work better for Britain and better for our forces. As the Defence Secretary has said, the contract was his decision, and his alone. Peter Mandelson had no influence on the decision to award this contract. The deal that we struck with Palantir will significantly reinforce the innovation of our forces, and reinforce the safety of this country as we move towards warfighting readiness.

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