The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy is today
publishing its report “Biosecurity and National Security”. The
report assesses how prepared the Government is for major
biological security risks, using the covid-19 pandemic as a test
case — to consider whether and how the identification of risk in
our national security system provokes a proportionate response,
in terms of means to address that risk.
Regrettably, it finds that this test case exposed profound
shortcomings in how the Government safeguards national security.
With regards to biological security, the Committee calls on the
Government to address long-term gaps in the planning and
preparation for biological risks to the UK’s national security.
The Committee asserts that the novel features of covid-19, for
example its high level of infectiousness compared with flu, do
not fully explain the Government’s inadequate response.
The report finds that insufficient attention was paid to
important capabilities ahead of the pandemic. For example, the
Government failed seriously to consider how it might scale up
testing, isolation and contact-tracing capabilities, despite the
Government’s earlier Biological Security Strategy’s emphasis on
‘Detection’, and despite predicting in 2017 that it was ‘likely’
that a new infectious disease would affect the UK in the next
five years. It is not clear the Government considered the
adequacy of its national laboratory network ahead of time. The
pandemic also exposed vulnerabilities in the UK’s supply of
personal protective equipment (PPE) and in its ability to tackle
false or misleading information online.
The report notes a striking absence of leadership of the UK’s
biological security as a whole, with neither the National
Security Council (NSC) nor the Cabinet Office assuming primary
responsibility. Although a pandemic has been a ‘tier-1’ security
risk since 2010, there has been only one ‘tier-1’ national health
crisis exercise in the last decade (‘Exercise Cygnus’) and this
did not cover all the Government’s pre-planned stages of pandemic
response. This was not even mentioned in the Biological Security
Strategy that came two years later. There is a lack of auditing
of the implementation of the lessons from exercises within
Departments and inadequate knowledge sharing. Frontline
organisations — local authorities, emergency responders and Local
Resilience Forums — have sometimes lacked the intelligence and
support they need from central government to carry out their role
effectively.
Recommendations
The Committee makes a series of recommendations, with particular
emphasis on stronger leadership and responsibility. It calls on
the Government to prioritise preparedness.
The report argues that there are a number of measures the
Government must take to prepare better for major disruptive
events, including introducing a regular and inclusive programme
of exercises to test the UK capabilities. The Committee calls for
ring-fenced multi-year funding for Government departments to
support risk horizon-scanning, as well as a long-term plan of
investment and support for frontline organisations, particularly
Local Resilience Forums. Additionally, the Government must
strengthen supply chains for dealing with future emergencies, to
learn the lessons of the current pandemic.
The report calls for a new body — a national centre for
biosecurity — to pool expertise on the full spectrum of risks
facing the UK, as well as a task force within the Cabinet Office.
The Committee calls for a responsible minister to report annually
to Parliament on the state of national preparations for major
security risks, including the state of the national stockpile of
critical items, surge capacity within public services and the
level of training that ministers have received in emergency
response.
Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security
Strategy, MP,
said:
“This year has been challenging for all of us, with many having
to make personal and painful sacrifices. The news of covid-19
vaccines is welcome in the run-up to Christmas.
"However, the pandemic in the UK was not unpredicted. The
Committee found that a pandemic was after all a matter of when,
rather than if. It is clear that the Government could have, and
should have, done more to prepare. Its negligence of key
capabilities led to unnecessary fumbling for solutions, when
instead the country needed decisive action. The Government at
times seems to have treated a vaccine as a 'fix-all', with little
pre-consideration of our capabilities for detecting where the
virus is and bringing cases under control.
“The pandemic has thrown our vulnerabilities into sharp relief
and it is vital that we use this opportunity for some critical
introspection. The Government must acknowledge the areas in which
they failed to adequately prepare a response to biosecurity
threats, such as the one we are currently facing.
“The Government must learn lessons, not just for future pandemics
but to fortify the structures we have in place to address all
types of major national security risks.
“It must also consider what the real-life impact of this tier-1
risk can teach us about our capacity to deal with other risks of
the same magnitude.”
