2026: Week 42 - National Curry Awards and Ukraine

It’s been another whirlwind week!

I started the week with an invitation to the National Curry Awards ceremony, which was being held at the House of Lords. These awards were established in 2019 to shine a spotlight on the accomplishments of the UK’s curry industry and celebrate its successes. Additionally, the National Curry Awards play a crucial role in inspiring and involving new generations to actively participate in the industry.

I wanted to attend the awards as I had learnt that one of our local restaurants, Bollywood Spice in Newton Abbot, had been nominated and were going to be there. I am absolutely delighted to say that they won the Curry House of the Year award, which is very well deserved. An incredible achievement for this family run business right in the heart of the constituency, who strive for excellence in all they do, and this dedication has paid off with this amazing accolade. Well done to the team at Bollywood Spice, I do hope that you will be able to pay them a visit in the coming weeks and sample their delicious food.

You may have seen that in the last couple of weeks there was a very concerning development in the war in Ukraine, where Ukraine military forces lost access to the Starshield internet which had a direct impact on their vital air defences, drone capabilities and communication channels. Whilst it is still unclear who ordered the access to be restricted, what is evident is relying on technology that is controlled by another country can be precarious.

We cannot deny that the world is unstable at the moment, and having such an erratic leader of America is unbalancing things further. This is one of the reasons that I am campaigning hard to get Palantir out of our NHS, and other public services. We cannot allow our vital technological infrastructure to be controlled by a foreign power, when it would be so easy for access to that infrastructure to be removed.

It would be a different story if, as a country, we were unable to develop our own solutions, but there are UK companies who are more than capable, and in fact alternative solutions to Palantir are already being used in an NHS Trust in Manchester. This sovereign solution is also yielding better outcomes and showing better results than the system from Palantir.

If you agree that we must urge the Government to make use of the break clause in the Palantir contract early next year, please sign my petition to 'Get Palantir Out' on my website www.martinwrigley.co.uk

More locally, there has been some very welcome news for Torbay Hospital. It has been confirmed that they will receive the investment needed to undertake the necessary work to make the tower block safe. This is a huge win for the area, and it has been a

pleasure to work with my fellow MP colleagues, Steve Darling and Caroline Voaden, to lobby for and help secure this essential funding.