Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he expects to receive the final advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the HPV vaccination programme for men who have sex with men.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the independent expert body that advises the Government on all immunisation matters agreed at its October 2014 meeting that further consultation was needed with stakeholders before finalising its advice to Ministers on the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination of men who have sex with men (MSM). It held a stakeholder consultation between 12 November and 7 January and we understand that JCVI considered the outcome of the consultation at its meeting on 4 February 2015, as it reviewed its provisional advice on MSM.

Any implementation of a HPV vaccination programme for MSM will be dependent on JCVI’s final advice. As JCVI is an independent body, we do not know exactly when it will issue its final advice on HPV vaccination of MSM, but work is ongoing within the Department to consider the provisional advice.