The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is leaving the UK “vulnerable to a major breakdown” of animal disease prevention measures, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said.
In a report published today (Wednesday, November 16), the committee said that Defra has allowed the UK’s main animal health facility at Weybridge to “deteriorate to an alarming extent”.
“Animal diseases pose a significant threat to UK health, trade, farming and rural communities,” the committee said.
“We are concerned that the government is not sufficiently prioritising this threat.”
The committee said that the poor management and underinvestment of the Weybridge site will severely impact the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) ability to effectively respond to disease outbreaks.
Weybridge site
According to the PAC, a review of the Weybridge site carried out by the National Audit Office (NAO) found more than 1,000 examples of “single points of failure – where loss of the system or asset will cause major catastrophic disruption to operations”.
Both Defra and the APHA’s corporate risk registers rate the risk of a major breakdown at Weybridge as ‘very high’.
The APHA’s Weybridge site is the UK’s primary science facility for managing threats from animal diseases. It houses 98% of the APHA’s high-containment laboratories.
Furthermore, it is the APHA’s main site for running long-term animal health studies and the only facility equipped to deal with most zoonotic (animal sourced) diseases.
Chief veterinary officer (CVO) Christine Middlemiss said that the site is not only important for responding to animal disease outbreaks, but also for the ongoing surveillance to detect animal diseases.
According to the PAC, the UK currently faces threats form “on-going disease such as Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB), new potential diseases such as African Swine Fever (ASF), and diseases affecting domestic pets including rabies”.
Threat from animal disease
The committee said that animal diseases pose a significant threat to the UK, both from farming and trade perspectives.
“To support UK trade in animals and animal products, it is vital that there is confidence in the UK’s ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks and in its on-going surveillance activities,” the committee said.
“We are concerned that the government’s National Risk Register only ranks the impact of animal diseases as category C, the middle ranking on a five-point scale A to E, despite the scale of potential economic and social impacts of animal diseases so starkly set out during our evidence session.
“The department’s inadequate long-term management of the Weybridge site demonstrates that it has not viewed animal disease as a high enough priority, but we also think the department has not had a strong enough voice in government to stress the seriousness of the threat.”
The committee said that the UK has already suffered from a number of animal disease outbreaks including Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE), Foot and Mouth disease and most recently avian influenza (bird flu).
“The National Audit Office highlighted the devastating effect the 2001 Foot and Mouth disease outbreak had on farmers, the rural economy and parts of the tourist industry,” it said.
“It estimated that the outbreak cost the public sector over £3 billion and the private sector over £5 billion based on prices at the time of the report.
“The chief veterinary officer further highlighted the impact of the outbreak, with millions of animals culled, mental health implications for farmers and memories of those events still strong in local communities today.
“The CVO set out the continued threat to the UK from animal diseases. For example, Bovine Tuberculosis is the largest endemic animal disease in the UK and has a huge impact on the farming industry, as well as on UK trade.”
Department response
The department has said that it recognises its failure to manage the Weybridge site properly, given its importance as a national asset.
It said that it had approached the management of the site as if it was just a property asset and had not recognised the wider importance of the science capability and the elements that are required to support that.
The department also said that there had been a lack of investment during the 2000s.
Its current redevelopment programme for the Weybridge site is currently estimated to cost £2.8 billion over 15 years, though this fund has not be agreed upon in full.
Commenting, Gareth Davies, head of NAO, said: “Defra has allowed the Weybridge site to deteriorate to a point where major redevelopment is now urgently required.
“Considering the site’s importance to the UK, it has taken Defra a long time to set up a programme to redevelop it.
“The department has recently put in place many of the right measures to manage the redevelopment successfully, but it will need to navigate many risks to deliver a site that can protect the UK against animal disease outbreaks and demonstrate value for taxpayers.”
