2001 UK foot-and-mouth outbreak - 25 years on: "Infectious diseases do not respect borders or species barriers, and we ignore this at our peril"

Before his career in politics, Epping Forest MP Dr Neil Hudson was a veterinary inspector who was on the frontline of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001. Dr Hudson remembers the once bustling farms which became empty, the impact it had on the sector's mental health, and why the current Government should never take the UK's national biosecurity for granted