Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment the Disability Unit has made of the potential merits of prioritising disabled people who are shielding for covid-19 vaccinations.

The Cabinet Office Disability Unit works with disability stakeholders and across Government Departments to ensure that the needs of disabled people are considered in the Government’s response to COVID-19.

The Government is clear that consideration of equality impacts must be integral in all key policy decisions, and that all equality and discrimination laws and obligations continue to apply during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation’s (JCVI) advice of 30 December placed “the clinically extremely vulnerable” (which includes those on the Shielded Patient List) and “all individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality” at number 4 and 6 respectively on the priority list for phase 1 of the vaccination roll out.

Those definitions will apply to many people who are disabled, which has given many welcome assurance that they are being given priority status befitting the higher risks they face.