For the UK’s meat processing industry, robust national resilience to animal disease underpins everything we do. It ensures access to export markets and underwrites the biosecurity and integrity of the supply chain. The UK’s capacity to detect, trace, contain, and respond to outbreaks directly affects trade continuity, consumer confidence and the cost of risk management across the sector. The recent Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report and government response provide a snapshot of where UK preparedness currently stands and the direction of planned improvements.
The Committee’s central finding was that the UK is not yet adequately prepared for the most severe, or more serious concurrent, animal disease outbreaks. This shortfall spans strategic planning, workforce capacity, coordination with local responders, and systems readiness. What’s encouraging is that the Government’s response agrees with the Committee’s recommendations in full, setting clear target dates for implementation and indicating where actions are already underway.
The PAC concluded that Defra/APHA must improve preparedness for a major outbreak. The government agreed to update all specific exotic disease control strategies (including foot and mouth disease, avian influenza, African swine fever, and lumpy skin disease) by March 2027, forming a rolling three-year review cycle.
This is explicitly linked to work on UK-EU sanitary and phytosanitary arrangements that may affect joint bio-security responses. Defra and APHA will also work with local resilience forums to understand and address barriers to preparedness, with support planning developed by February 2027. The response reported that two large-scale preparedness exercises (Exercise Pegasus and Exercise ASPEN) have been run and their lessons will be applied to strengthen future readiness, with further action through 2026.
The Committee identified vet vacancies and workforce shortfalls as limiting outbreak response capability. The government agreed, and committed to producing a veterinary workforce strategy by March 2027. This strategy will set out the scale of the workforce challenge and how best to use available tools, including pay allowances and inter-departmental support, to recruit, retain, and reinforce veterinary capacity critical for disease detection, response, and welfare objectives. An inter-departmental working group will be established to guide this work, aligning veterinary workforce planning across government.
Livestock identification and traceability, a cornerstone of rapid outbreak control, has been slow, the PAC found. The government has agreed to stick to its revised timetable, with the multi-species tracing system progressing. A key industry-relevant change is mandatory electronic identification (EID) for all new-born calves from 2027, improved movement reporting, and gradual expansion to sheep, pigs and other species, aligning UK practice with devolved administrations.
The Committee emphasised that existing incident management systems and multi-agency coordination (including the role of local resilience forums under the Civil Contingencies Act) are uneven. The government reiterated that APHA is enhancing its internal preparedness assurance, embedding regular exercising as a core element of readiness, and will improve engagement and coordination with local responders. This includes refreshing key contacts across resilience networks and trialling new incident management approaches.
Defra/APHA have committed to staged, prioritised approaches with clear deadlines for updating control strategies and workforce planning. The government will incorporate learning from exercises into preparedness frameworks and maintain review cycles for disease strategies. While not every recommendation had a precise annual reporting requirement attached in the Treasury Minutes themselves, the planned updates (e.g., strategy reviews by March 2027 and engagement plans by February 2027) set concrete timelines for strengthened resilience.
We are the UKs largest trade body for the meat industry and provide expert advice on trade issues, bespoke technical advice and access to government policy makers
We are proud to count businesses of all sizes and specialties as members. They range from small, family run abattoirs serving local customers to the largest meat processing companies responsible for supplying some of our best-loved brands to shops and supermarkets.
We are further strengthened by our associate Members who work in industries that support and supply our meat processing companies.
We are the voice of the British meat industry.
17 Clerkenwell Green
Clerkenwell, EC1 0DP
Tel: 020 7329 0776