A former cabinet minister has warned that there could be a “battle royale” over a £480m NHS England data software contract sought by the controversial US tech firm Palantir, whose chair has accused the UK health service of “making people sick”.

David Davis, the Conservative former Brexit secretary who previously led the campaign against ID cards, said he was one of those with serious privacy concerns about Palantir’s bid. He is among at least a dozen MPs and peers across the political spectrum who are pressing the government for more reassurances about how patient data will be treated as the new data operating system is built.

Palantir, which grew out of a US spy organisation, is the frontrunner for the contract after it worked for almost nothing to create data software for the NHS during the Covid pandemic.