Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of his Department’s capability during Exercise PEGASUS.

Defence fully participated in Exercise PEGASUS, a tier one national exercise designed to simulate a realistic pandemic scenario. A Defence team was fully integrated with DHSC and UKHSA to plan and design Defence's contribution to the exercise.

For each of the three full-play 'anchor' exercise days that ran between September and October 2025, a Departmental Operations Centre was stood up. This included a mix of civilian and military experts to simulate a fully informed response to a pandemic. Defence Ministers also participated in simulated Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) meetings.

Defence teams are now involved in the evaluation process, identifying any lessons learned from the exercise. Defence will take action on these lessons and will incorporate them into our existing pandemic management plan.