Vaccine Passports

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con) [V]]

It is difficult to speak at the end of this debate as the last Member on the Government side. Much has already been said in this short debate, which has been full of excellent points, particularly those made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker).

I want to firmly and clearly lay out my position on the issue of vaccine passports. In the media, there are different versions of what they might look like. We have had what one might consider to be a vaccine passport for international travel for a long time, as those visiting Africa or South America have to prove they have had the relevant inoculations, most commonly against malaria but for other diseases, too. People who make those journeys do that routinely as part of their travel plans.

As colleagues have said, those decisions are not made unilaterally by the UK. We do not have the power to tell other countries what to do about immunisations, including the covid vaccine. If Guatemala wants visitors to have inoculations, then that is up to Guatemala. In my view, it makes sense for the UK to have a system by which people can prove their vaccine status, if that is what they want to do. People are highly likely to need to be able to do that if they want to travel extensively, but that is largely up to other countries.

We would therefore be well advised to have something like that available for people to access—importantly—if they choose to do so. If that has to be a database, I see no reason why the existing NHS app—or some other means where such data is already shared—could not be adapted for that function. I hope Ministers will look at that before they try to reinvent the wheel.

In my mind, there is no reason why this should not simply be done on paper, rather than requiring all this data sharing and the minefield that comes with it. People already get a certificate or an email when they get their covid test result, which could be used as proof. I am yet to find anyone who had a problem with the idea of proving a negative test, at least in the short term.

Obviously, we hope all this goes away and we do not have to do it for long, but in the interest of getting events and businesses up and running faster, it might make sense for people to show a result to attend a mass event, such as a football match or a concert. I think businesses would welcome that if it helped them to get up and running faster. That is something we could and should look at. Importantly, that is the line for me, and for many others.

I believe in the vaccine; it is a great feat of science and innovation to be able to deliver it. I believe everyone should have it, and I will have it when my turn comes, but we are asking people to inject something into their bodies, through a medical procedure, and that requires consent. That is a basic idea that we subscribe to. No Government should be in the business of mandating or coercing people to do that.

As much as we may feel that getting vaccinated is the right thing to do, people have rights and responsibilities over their own bodies. I draw the line firmly at coercing people to get vaccinated. That seems to be discriminatory and there would certainly be a legal challenge. We have to win the argument, recognising that some people will not want the vaccine or be able to have it, for whatever reason. That is their free choice.

Somebody described the vaccine passport as a requirement to prove vaccine status before being able to go to the pub or an event, or, as someone suggested, to get a job. I think that is truly abhorrent. That would be coercion on a level that I have never seen in any democratic country, and not something I could ever support. The idea that any Government, never mind a Conservative one, could say “no jab, no job” is entirely morally wrong. I assume, therefore, that there are no plans to do this. I hope the Minister will reaffirm that. I have been told by other Ministers in the past that there are no plans to do it.

No matter how much I may personally believe that it is important and the right thing to have the vaccine, it will fundamentally impact on people’s basic rights if we require vaccination status to be shown in our daily lives, for our very basic rights, and be a huge backwards step for our liberty and freedom.