Agriculture: Disease Control

(asked on 3rd November 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the resilience of commercial plant and animal species to the risk of novel disease outbreaks.


Answered by
Mark Spencer Portrait
Mark Spencer
Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 11th November 2022

By law (REUL for The European Union (EU) Directive 2003/85/EC) animal health-focused exercises of contingency plans need to be undertaken every five years at a cross-department, cross-devolved administration national level and every year/few years at lower regional or limited national levels.

We have a well-established contingency plan for responding to outbreaks of exotic disease in animals Contingency Plan for Exotic Notifiable Diseases of Animals in England (publishing.service.gov.uk). We also have specific control strategies for our highest likelihood threats, such as African Swine fever, Foot and Mouth disease, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza and Rabies.

The Generic Contingency Plan for Plant Health in England describes how the Plant Health Service in England would manage outbreaks of plant pests. In accordance with retained EU regulation 2016/2031, specific contingency plans are also required for priority plant pests (priority pests are listed here - The Plant Health (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (legislation.gov.uk)). These plans detail additional measures to those set out in the generic contingency plan to manage these pests. Our generic contingency plan and pest specific contingency plans (for the priority pests and other high risk pests) are available here - Contingency planning - UK Plant Health Information Portal (defra.gov.uk). EU regulation 2016/2031 also specifies that simulation exercises should be carried out for our priority pests at appropriate intervals.

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