Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to prioritise tier 3 areas in the first covid-19 vaccination rollout.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) are the independent experts who provide advice to the Government on which vaccine(s) the United Kingdom should use and which groups within the population to prioritise.

The Committee – in their interim advice - have advised that for Phase 1, the vaccine first be given to care home residents and staff, followed by people over 80 years old and health and social workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and clinical risk factors. The prioritisation could change substantially if the first available vaccines were not considered suitable for, or effective in, older adults.