Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of (a) trends in the level of and (b) potential impact on health outcomes of maternal rather than direct infant vaccination.

The UK Health Security Agency monitors trends in the level of vaccination rates. Trends in maternal and infant immunisation are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/vaccine-uptake

Maternal and infant whooping cough vaccinations are designed to act in different ways, so a direct comparison of effects is not appropriate. However, current evidence is that both offer excellent protection against mortality from whooping cough in infants. For respiratory syncytial virus, there is no suitable vaccine for infants.