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

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Sammy Wilson

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Not too many people pretend to be me—not even in my own party.

I find the Minister’s statement rather bizarre. First, the main medical reason given for the decision is not to protect young people from covid but to protect their mental health, their educational wellbeing and their ability to associate in society. Does he accept, first, that the way this measure will be rolled out could lead to children being bullied, stigmatised and named on Instagram, Twitter and so on, because the whole school will know whether they go for a vaccine or not, and secondly, given that school principals can make the decision whether a group of individuals, a class or a year group is closed down if people are found to have tested positive in the school, that this is no guarantee that educational disadvantage will not be attacked either?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the right hon. Member’s question. Actually, quite the opposite is the case. First, he will know that school bubbles have gone. The school-age vaccination programme and those clinicians are really very well equipped and very well versed in dealing with vaccines in schools, so this will not be a new thing for them. Their ability to gain consent and communicate exactly why the chief medical officers have gone ahead is, in my view, an important element of the decision to accept the recommendation tonight. So I would say quite the opposite: it is right that we accept the recommendation tonight.

As I said in my statement, no one—no parent or child—should be stigmatised for making a decision. We have been transparent all the way through this process, and we have been incredibly careful, as we have demonstrated. Many other countries now boast that their vaccination programmes have reached far higher numbers than ours. I have always said that this is not a race; it is about doing the right thing for children and adults to transition this virus from pandemic to endemic.