To ask His Majesty’s Government what initial lessons they have learned about cross-government and whole-of-society preparedness from Exercise Pegasus 2025.
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission and I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
My Lords, Exercise Pegasus tested our ability to respond to a pandemic, involving all nations of the UK and thousands of participants. Evaluation and lesson identification is under way for the first three phases, with interim findings incorporated into the draft pandemic preparedness strategy due to be published in early 2026. The final exercise phase, focusing on recovery, is planned for this summer. The Government have committed to communicating the findings through the post-exercise report this winter.
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that response. It is important that Exercise Pegasus is seen as being about not simply pandemics but the much wider issues of how every level of government and the nation as a whole are prepared to deal with crises and emergencies. In that context, can she tell us more about how the voluntary, community and faith sectors, and the business community, were engaged in this exercise at national and local resilience forum level?
My noble friend, who is a world-leading expert in this area, is absolutely right. All exercises should be about ensuring that we can adopt a whole-of-society approach to resilience. That includes making sure that all key stakeholders are involved. Conversations and engagement are ongoing, but, to reassure your Lordships’ House, not only were 6,000 professionals mobilised in each phase of this exercise but we had 16 focus groups and four population surveys, and 2,000 members of the public were involved. That included specific focus groups with the voluntary sector and key businesses to make sure that we could and can deliver. Fundamentally, these exercises are about making sure that the right relationships, as well as the right structures, are in place.
My Lords, Exercise Pegasus 2025 was clearly extremely useful. However, the Chief of the Defence Staff was recently reported as saying that we do not have a holistic plan for the mobilisation of the NHS in the event of a large-scale conflict. What action is being taken to assess the requirements of such a mobilisation and to take any necessary remedial action?
The noble and gallant Lord makes an incredibly important point about making sure that every part of our society is involved and prepared for whatever crisis may come before us. There is no more important role for this Government than keeping our people safe, by ensuring that we have a strong Armed Forces and that our public services can cope with these moments. The Chief of the Defence Staff was clear in his evidence to the HCDC that the UK national defence plan will be developed across 2026, in line with our NATO commitments at home and abroad.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Covid epidemic was made much worse by obesity? As two-thirds of British people are obese or overweight and half our children are obese, what are the Government doing to reduce that incidence and reduce the mortality in any future epidemics?
I was hoping I looked a bit skinny today, but maybe not.
The noble Lord raises an important point about how we ensure that the general public are as well as they can be, given that we do not know what the next threat may be and how it will touch society. That is why this Government launched their 10-year health plan, which includes how we engage with those who have health inequalities and wider inequalities, to ensure that every member of the general public is best placed to deal with the threat.
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Feedback from local resilience forums suggests that they are now clearer about their roles thanks to this exercise but lack the surge funding to maintain the staff trained during Pegasus. Will the Government be looking to commit to a multiyear resilience funding settlement for local resilience forums, to ensure that the lessons of Pegasus are not lost to pressures on local budgets?
The noble Lord raises an important point. Additional funding has been allocated for health, to make sure we have the long-term investment of £460 million in place. The noble Lord will be aware that we currently have the LRF trailblazer scheme in place and are in the process of developing the protocol, which is due for testing in March. I hope that any further issues around funding will follow at that point.
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Harris mentioned the community and voluntary sectors in his question. It was clear during the pandemic how very reliant we are on the community and voluntary sectors to step up to the plate quickly in times of emergency. They do, however, often feel that they are consulted and involved a bit late. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that this will not happen in future epidemics?
My noble friend is right. Many of us volunteered during that period, through our faith communities and the community groups with which we are associated. As we saw during the pandemic, voluntary and community groups are at the heart of our communities and faith groups. The reality is that during Exercise Pegasus we ensured that their voices were heard. Phase 4 of Pegasus is about how we recover from a pandemic. Those voices, and stakeholder engagement with that sector specifically, are key elements of these conversations.
My Lords, the next threat that faces the country is unlikely to be the same as the last one. What lessons have the Government learned about making sure that Ministers can assess the threat, whatever it is, make the appropriate trade-offs and respond quickly, but also engage both Houses of Parliament to ensure there is proper democratic oversight and scrutiny of the important trade-offs and choices that are made?
The noble Lord is right. However, it is about not just this House and the other place but the four devolved Assemblies, making sure that all nations and regions have proper democratic oversight and engagement in any process. That is why Pegasus included not only ministerial leads, which it did, and the relevant government departments and arm’s-length bodies, but regional and national Governments, and the LRFs, to make sure that we knew who was responsible for what and at what time, and, candidly, where there are holes that we need to fill. We need to learn from previous experiences, whether that is the pandemic or the recent storms, and we need to make sure that we are prepared for what may face us. That is why I urge all noble Lords to read the National Risk Register matrix to see where the threats may come from.