How prepared is the UK for a major animal disease outbreak?
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hold an evidence session on resilience to threats from animal disease at 10am on Thursday 4 September 2025.
Meeting details
Outbreaks of animal disease, such as foot and mouth disease and bird flu, are significant threats to human health and rural communities, to wildlife, the farming and food sectors, and to the economy and trade. They have occurred in 16 of the past 20 years, including six consecutive outbreaks of bird flu from 2020 to ’25. The foot and mouth crisis in 2001 cost public and private sectors c.£13.8bn in today’s prices.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has found that while government has worked hard to manage recent medium-severity outbreaks, it would likely struggle to manage severe or concurrent serious outbreaks. Government has assessed the risk of an outbreak to which it would be unable to respond effectively as “very high” and above tolerable levels.
One particular challenge for government is a shortage of vets for livestock. The Animal Plant and Health Agency’s (APHA) vacancy rate for vets was 20% in April 2025, which it attributed to lower salaries than the private sector; vets preferring to work with domestic animals over livestock; and a post-Brexit reduction in European workers in the sector.
The PAC will take evidence from senior officials at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and APHA to examine how prepared the country is for major animal disease outbreaks. Other likely topics include:
- Improving biosecurity at the border, and what live animal checks will look like following any agreement with the EU;
- Concerns around the main animal disease labs at Weybridge, which Defra last year gave a maximum rating in its risk assessment of site failure (25 out of a possible 25);
- How risks from animal diseases are likely to develop over the next decade.