Khan vetoes £50m Met Police Palantir contract over procurement breaches

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has intervened to block a proposed £50m contract between the Metropolitan Police and US technology firm Palantir, citing a clear and serious breach of procurement rules. The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) withheld approval for the two-year deal, stating that the Met had engaged with only one supplier, failed to test the market for value for money, and risked locking the force into Palantir’s proprietary technology.

The contract, intended to utilise Palantir’s artificial intelligence for intelligence analysis in criminal investigations, was the largest of its kind for the company in British policing. Mopac described the Met’s failure to obtain prior approval for its procurement strategy as a procedural breach that created legal and reputational risks. A letter from Khan’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley stated she had received no acceptable explanation for the failure, noting the deal was valued at the top of the Met’s original £15m to £25m annual estimate.

Mopac highlighted that the Met had conducted a recent trial of Palantir’s AI to monitor staff behaviour under a contract awarded directly without open competition. While the value of that trial contract was marginally below the threshold requiring City Hall’s approval, Mopac found it to be a procedural failure. Khan’s office warned that the proposed deal did not ensure value for money and emphasized that Londoners expect public money to be paid to companies that share the values of the city.

Despite the block on this specific agreement, Palantir remains eligible to bid for future contracts. Mopac indicated a desire to work with the Met on a new procurement process at pace. However, Khan plans to raise the question with the government of whether company ethics should be a factor in public procurement processes, noting that current regulations prevent such considerations despite rising political and public concern regarding Palantir’s reach in UK public services.

The decision presents a challenge to the Labour government’s broader strategy to adopt AI technology in policing at pace and scale. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has previously called for police to ramp up AI use, including a £115m investment for a national AI policing platform. Palantir currently holds more than £600m in contracts with UK public services, including the NHS and Ministry of Defence, while facing criticism from MPs and petitions from the public over the company’s political ties and business practices.

Palantir’s UK chief executive, Louis Mosley, has engaged in a public relations effort to rebut criticism, citing benefits such as 110,000 additional NHS operations and reduced discharge delays. Other police forces, such as Bedfordshire, have credited the system with helping dismantle organised crime gangs. The Met Police had previously heralded a trial of the technology that resulted in hundreds of officers being investigated for misdemeanours, including abusing the computerised roster system and failing to declare Freemasonry membership.