Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to prioritise the parents of children who are clinically extremely vulnerable for receipt of the covid-19 vaccine in the event that those parents do not meet the eligibility criteria for receipt of that vaccine under the terms of any other priority cohort for the delivery of that vaccine.

There are no current plans to offer the vaccine to the parents of clinical extremely vulnerable (CEV) children.

In line with current advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), adult members of a household that includes someone who is CEV are prioritised for vaccination according to their own age and clinical risk. They are not prioritised on the basis of sharing a household with someone who is CEV whether this person is an adult or a child. Children under 16 years of age, even if they are CEV, are at low risk of serious morbidity and mortality and given the absence of safety and efficacy data on the vaccine, are not recommended for vaccination.

The JCVI continues to look at the emerging evidence on COVID-19 and will offer further advice if and when evidence is found that vaccinating a particular group, including household members of individuals most at risk from COVID-19, would further reduce overall mortality, morbidity and hospitalisation which is the overarching objective.