Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the level of risk of incursion of African swine fever to the UK.

Whilst we have never had an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) in the UK, the overall risk of an incursion of ASF is currently assessed to be MEDIUM (the event occurs regularly) and we continue to prepare for a possible outbreak. The risk of ASF entering Great Britain through non-commercial and illegal imports of pork meat and products of animal origin from ASF affected areas remains of high concern. The risk from these human mediated pathways is assed as HIGH (event occurs very often), though there is considerable uncertainty around this.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) monitors the spread of ASF internationally and regularly publishes assessments of the risk posed to Great Britain. The latest assessments (published in July 2024 for Europe and August 2024 for Asia) can be found as part of APHA's Animal diseases: international and UK monitoring collection on gov.uk. These assessments are used to review, and strengthen where necessary, measures to prevent ASF reaching the UK.

The practical impacts of a reasonable worst-case scenario outbreak of ASF were assessed in 2023 for the National Risk Register which is available on GOV.UK