I thank noble Lords for their contributions and agree that we are all trying to achieve the same thing: to ensure the digital benefits come from this system and maybe—who knows?—create a
UTOPIA, but also, vitally, maintain confidence. I take all these comments in the helpful spirit in which they are intended, and I hope that noble Lords will like my replies. At the same time, anything that I do not properly cover now—I suspect there will be some things I am not able to cover—I will, as ever, follow up on in detail in writing. Such is the importance of this that I am happy to meet again as well. The various meetings that we have had have been very productive, so I will make sure that those written answers come out quickly. I invite noble Lords to please come back if they feel there are some bits that still need further clarification. I will definitely set that up quickly and ensure that the officials are there as well. I have had various bits of feedback from the officials—I have tried to be engaged all the way through this. As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said, we have tried to get this right. I accept that we have not always done it perfectly, but I hope noble Lords can see that the good will is there.
On the specific questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I agree not only to publish the review but, happily, to brief Parliament on that. On the idea of including the LGA in the composition, I am very happy to do that. Regarding the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, on the ability to use Palantir outside of the agreed research, the intent is absolutely that it can be used only for the agreed purposes and it cannot be used or sold elsewhere without suitable agreement. Again, the annual report will address how well it is working in practice.
I hope that the merger will not be like the PHE closure. I think they have been working on the new timing, in terms of February, since October, when it was announced, and have been working with the staff on that timing. I know that the plans that I have seen have taken into account the ability or need to retain people, which is obviously crucial to this, as we know that you need additional skills in this space and the importance of retaining them.
On the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, my understanding regarding Wales—and I will make sure that this is followed up properly in writing—is that it has consented to the transfer arrangements in this. Generally, NHS England will continue to play the same role it has currently; that has been agreed. I entirely take and accept her point about the hacking risk, that the more attractive you make the data pool, for want of a better word, obviously the more essential it is to make sure that security and protections are in place.
As ever, I enjoyed the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Allan. He was talking about UTOPIA. He mentioned the geeks, and I am sure he is aware that that word came out of the Second World War, when they were looking for general engineering and electrical knowledge in their recruitment of soldiers, so that is one for him. Going forward, those extra forms of transparency and the quadruple lock all sound very sensible to me. I had a quick note from my team, saying that they also thought that it sounded sensible. Again, I think that we will probably need to put some detail around that, but I thank the noble Lord for those suggestions. Let us try to make sure that we work with those.
I absolutely take all the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, again, in the spirit in which they are intended. I do not think that I have a good answer to the “marking their own homework” point, to be fair. I hope that the noble Baroness knows me well enough to know that I will never try to argue that black is white from where we are. I think that is, quite rightly, the concern that all noble Lords have raised tonight, and it is obviously these protections, such as the quadruple lock and the other things that we need to put in place, that we need to make sure are there.
On the kind of things mentioned, the advice and the minutes from the meetings and the advice given by the independent groups—absolutely. I spent a bit of time today on how we would involve the ICSs, and my understanding—again, I freely admit my understanding is probably at GCSE level right now, so I need to do a bit more work on this—is that a lot of this is around the data standards that the ICSs are starting to deploy to make sure that the formatting of the data is correct so that everything can be kept in this common data warehouse. That is something that they are working on already, in terms of establishing those standards. A number of trusts have worked towards that, accepting that it cannot be completely finalised until we know who is going to win the tender for it.
8.45 pm
I have tried to answer most of the concerns. I will follow up in detail by writing. If we feel that there is anything that is still not secure enough, I am very happy to call a meeting so that we can go through it all. I thank noble Lords for their comments and for the spirit of the debate tonight. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for ensuring that we managed to cover those points, because we can all see the benefits of a common platform and the digital ability—the ability not to have to print out and fax or email your results—that could come. My letter bag is very full of loads of those sorts of cases, so we can all see the benefits, but at the same time maintaining public confidence is key. There is nothing that can ensure that a great utopian opportunity is a defeat snatched from the jaws of victory if the public do not have confidence in it. With that, I commend the Motion to the House.