Covid-19 Vaccinations: 12 to 15-year-olds Debate

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Department: Department of Health and Social Care

Covid-19 Vaccinations: 12 to 15-year-olds

Andy Slaughter Excerpts
Monday 13th September 2021

(2 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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I am grateful to the Chair of the Education Committee, who has rightly been incredibly engaged in the process and the debate around it. I confirm to him that parents will be asked for their consent, and information will be made available to enable them fully to understand the recommendation of the chief medical officers for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I will happily write to him about the cost of this part of the vaccination programme.

Andy Slaughter Portrait Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
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The Minister is right to say that the virus is still with us. This morning, there were 91 people hospitalised in my local hospital trust compared with 25 on 1 June, and vaccination for 16-year-olds and above—double vaccination—remains stubbornly stuck at 50% in my local authority area. Apart from this measure, what does the Minister have in mind to address these serious issues?

Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
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I am grateful for the hon. Member’s question. He raises an important issue, and he has raised it with me in the MPs briefings as well. One thing we continue to do is to have the evergreen offer so that people can come forward at any time. I can share with the House that in the past week, for example, in the first phase of groups 1 to 9—the most vulnerable as per the JCVI recommendation, as the House will recall—we still had 30,000 people come forward for their first dose, and out of the second phase of groups 10 to 12, we had 70,000. Therefore 100,000 people took advantage of the evergreen offer. As we embark—the planning is well under way—on the booster programme, we continue to drive up the evergreen offer for first-dose people to come forward.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned his experience in his constituency and in his region about the drive to increase uptake among different ethnic groups. That continues to be our priority, and we continue to make sure that those communities get not just the information but access to the vaccines. We are making it as easy as possible for them to access the vaccine without an appointment: they can just walk in and get their jab.