Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the government is taking to implement the provisions agreed in the Pandemic Agreement at the World Health Assembly in May 2025.

After three years of negotiations, the Government welcomes the historic adoption of the Pandemic Agreement by the World Health Assembly (WHA), the World Health Organization’s (WHO) main decision-making body. The agreement should ensure that member states of the WHO take comprehensive action, together, to better prevent pandemics and improve disease surveillance so we can detect and respond to emerging pandemic threats promptly. The Government has worked hard to secure it. The sovereignty of member states is one of the guiding principles of the Pandemic Agreement. It does not include any provisions that would give the WHO powers to impose domestic public health decisions on the United Kingdom, such as potential lockdowns.

The Pandemic Agreement will not be binding on the UK as a matter of international law until the Government has ratified it in accordance with our own constitutional process. This would involve laying the agreement as a treaty before Parliament for scrutiny in the usual way. As part of that process, the Government would consider what domestic implementation is required ahead of ratification. The Pandemic Agreement will not be open for signature and ratification until follow-up negotiations on the annex to the agreement, on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system, have successfully concluded and it has been adopted by the WHA. These negotiations will soon begin and member states of the WHO have agreed to report on the outcome within one year.