The government must do more to prepare for a severe animal disease outbreak, MPs have warned.
In a report on resilience to animal diseases such as bird flu, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that government would find responding to such outbreaks would be extremely stretching.
Defra had worked hard to manage the ongoing five-year-long outbreak of bird flu, said the committee. But the government was in semi-permanent response mode and resources had been diverted from other important work.
Combined with the post-Brexit loss of access to the EU’s animal diseases intelligence system, this had caused a reduction in vital surveillance to help detect new and re-emerging disease threats quickly and stop their spread.
Another limiting factor was the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s struggle to recruit and retain enough vets, with a vacancy rate of 15% in September 2025. This was limiting the nation’s ability to protect itself.
Issues driving the vet shortage include mental health challenges around activities such as culling animals; pay and conditions; and working hours. A veterinary workforce strategy would help to address the shortage, says the committee.
‘Deepest concern’
Public accounts committee chairman Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP said: “The bill for the major foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001 ran into multiple billions for the public and private sector.
“Serious animal disease outbreaks pose a severe threat to wildlife, and the farming sector, and in the case of zoonotic diseases, to human health. Our latest report should therefore be of the deepest concern to all of us.”
Hard work had been done to respond to the current outbreaks of bird flu and bluetongue virus, said Sir Geoffrey. But more resources were needed to prepare for future threats – which should be treated as a matter of when, not if.
A full strategy was needed to ensure preparedness for such events. The government had been strongly focused on immediate-term threats – it must now develop the bandwidth to look to the long-term as well.