Exercise Pegasus 2025

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what initial lessons they have learned about cross-government and whole-of-society preparedness from Exercise Pegasus 2025.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission and I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, Exercise Pegasus tested our ability to respond to a pandemic, involving all nations of the UK and thousands of participants. Evaluation and lesson identification is under way for the first three phases, with interim findings incorporated into the draft pandemic preparedness strategy due to be published in early 2026. The final exercise phase, focusing on recovery, is planned for this summer. The Government have committed to communicating the findings through the post-exercise report this winter.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that response. It is important that Exercise Pegasus is seen as being about not simply pandemics but the much wider issues of how every level of government and the nation as a whole are prepared to deal with crises and emergencies. In that context, can she tell us more about how the voluntary, community and faith sectors, and the business community, were engaged in this exercise at national and local resilience forum level?