Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of LancasterIn the dark days of 2020 and 2021, we witnessed the devastating impact of a novel infectious disease outbreak spreading across the world. To date, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed over 200,000 people in the UK, close to seven million globally. It ravaged health systems, destroyed economies and damaged livelihoods.

It has been the biggest crisis the UK has faced in generations, and the greatest peacetime challenge in a century. And it has taught us a number of things since the last Biological Security Strategy was published in 2018.

First, our world is increasingly vulnerable to biological threats with catastrophic impacts - whether it is another pandemic, a terrorist attack or antimicrobial resistance. Those threats have only multiplied in recent years, and they overlap and intersect with each other in increasingly complex ways. Second, the pandemic demonstrated the sheer ingenuity and innovation of the UK’s Life Sciences sector, including the phenomenal success of the COVID-19 vaccine development and rollout programme. The partnerships forged between the public, private and philanthropic sectors, allied in their determination to defeat the virus, were an unqualified success, saving countless lives.