UK Military Personnel Serving Overseas: Vaccination Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

UK Military Personnel Serving Overseas: Vaccination

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts
Wednesday 23rd June 2021

(2 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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James Heappey Portrait James Heappey
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I will write to the hon. Gentleman.

Andrew Gwynne Portrait Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
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Look, this is just wrong and the Minister should admit it. Our service personnel deserve full vaccination before deployment on overseas missions. When the US, France, Germany and others have fully vaccinated their forces, it does not seem right that we are behind the curve on this. He says that all personnel are now single-jabbed but there is no point in providing second jabs unless the required time has elapsed for them to be effective. I get that, but can he make it clear to the House whether that is the 12-week extended gap that the public have to wait for, or the three-week gap that the vaccine manufacturers recommend?

James Heappey Portrait James Heappey
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I will write to the hon. Gentleman if this is incorrect, but I believe that we are working on around a four-week gap.