Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what role his Department (a) has or (b) plans to have in (i) monitoring and (ii) identifying international virus outbreaks in the future via an early bio-security warning system.

The UK Health Security Agency was established in April 2021, with part of its remit to detect and monitor infectious diseases and other hazards to health including through surveillance, analysis, horizon scanning and early warning systems. Defence is working extremely closely with DHSC and partners across Government to establish how we might best support this work.