Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to prepare for another global pandemic.

Ensuring the United Kingdom is prepared for a future pandemic is a top priority for the Government, and we are embedding lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic in our approach to pandemic preparedness. We aim to have flexible, adaptable, and scalable capabilities that can respond to any infectious disease or other threat, rather than relying on plans for specific threats.

The Government is committed to learning the lessons from the UK COVID-19 Inquiry to protect and prepare us for the future. On 16 January 2025, the Government published its response to the inquiry’s module one report on resilience and preparedness. A copy of the response is attached. The Department has committed, as part of this response, to publishing a new pandemic preparedness strategy that will show how we are embedding our new approach to pandemic preparedness.

In the 2024 Autumn budget, my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that £460 million of investment has been allocated to strengthen the UK’s pandemic preparedness and health protection, including replenishing personal protective equipment, vaccine, and medicines stockpiles.

In autumn 2025, the Department and the UK Health Security Agency conducted Exercise Pegasus, a national exercise on the UK’s preparedness for a pandemic. It tested our ability to respond to a pandemic, involving all regions and nations of the UK and thousands of participants. The exercise has provided valuable experience which is being used to inform our strategy and planning. The Government has committed to communicating the findings through the post-exercise report this winter.

An established clinical countermeasures programme is a core component of our pandemic preparedness and set of response capabilities. These countermeasures include personal protective equipment and hygiene consumables, as well as vaccines and therapeutics, such as influenza antivirals and antibiotics.