Recommendation 19

The Government’s programme of biosecurity exercises is inadequate. There has only been one ‘tier 1’ national biosecurity exercise in the last decade (Exercise Cygnus), and because of its size it was decided not to test several important capabilities critical for a pandemic response. Holding more exercises would, between them, allow all capabilities to be covered. We are concerned that the results and lessons of exercises are not fully shared; Exercise Cygnus was not even mentioned in a Biological Security Strategy published only two years later.