Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to add further exemptions to her Department's absence policy to include absence related to reactions and side effects caused by covid-19 booster vaccination.

There is an existing exemption in our attendance management policy covering the acute phase of Covid infection.

For absences relating to reactions to, or side effects from, Covid vaccination (which are likely to be of short duration), managers are encouraged to take a sympathetic approach under the normal provisions of our attendance management policy. We have no plans to introduce an exemption covering reactions to Covid vaccinations.