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

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me, again, slightly push back on that. It is not teachers who are being asked to do this; it is our clinicians, who are well trained and incredibly capable because they do the same thing year in, year out for the purpose of school-age vaccination programmes. They will be offering the vaccines, and ensuring that parents have enough time to read the information and then give their consent before a vaccination takes place.

This is very much not about a situation involving division. I think—I hope—my hon. Friend agrees that throughout the vaccine deployment programme that we began in earnest back on 8 December last year with Pfizer-BioNTech and continued on 4 January with the AstraZeneca vaccine, we have endeavoured never to stigmatise anyone and to provide as much information and transparency as possible, which has led to the highest level of vaccine positivity in the world. I believe that according to the Office for National Statistics data on vaccine positivity in the UK, more than 90% of adults have said that they are very likely to take the vaccine, or have already taken it.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Many children will be anxious and worried on hearing the news that they will be receiving a vaccination, and I share the concern expressed about that by a number of Members this evening. How will the Minister be working with schools and teachers to ensure that children are informed about the vaccine in an age-appropriate and sensitive way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

It is important to remember that the clinicians who deliver the school-age vaccination programme around the country are very well equipped to deliver information about these vaccines, as they do in respect of others. The information will of course be made available to parents, and, as I have said, the consent procedure will be followed very closely. The infrastructure is not new; it is not something novel about which we might have to hesitate and worry. It is already there, and it is well able to deliver this programme.