Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of how many and what proportion of people in England may decline a covid-19 vaccine.

The Department is monitoring people’s intention to take a vaccine as part of its planning processes, including regularly reviewing publicly available polling and any research conducted by other Governmental organisations on the issue. Polls on people’s intentions are indicative of general thinking around vaccine uptake as they rely on asking the public hypothetical questions about the future.

The Department recognises that public trust in vaccines will play a significant and important part in the uptake of a COVID-19 vaccine and therefore, we are working closely with Public Health England and NHS England and NHS Improvement to provide authoritative information to the public and urge everyone to seek National Health Service advice, so they have the right information to make an informed choice about getting vaccinated.