UK Military Personnel Serving Overseas: Vaccination

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

First, let me just correct myself for fear that I have inadvertently misled the House: the figure for all overseas deployments is 95%; 98.6% refers to the deployment in Mali. I apologise for that inaccuracy.

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Given where we are in the national vaccination programme, one might argue that that is now the case, as everybody is within days of receiving their first jab. In fact, the way that the vaccination programme was administered whereby everybody over 50 received their jab in one go towards the front end of the priority groups at home meant that many in their 50s and 60s overseas—although in the defence population that is not very many—ended up receiving their jabs ahead of their age group in the UK. Likewise, for those under 40, jabs were effectively being rolled out in line with people in their 40s here in the UK. That means that many of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen who were in their late teens or 20s were getting their jab well ahead of their contemporaries.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I think many of us are shocked to hear some of the Minister’s comments today. He seems proud of the numbers testing positive in Mali. We should not have any testing positive at all because they should have received a double vaccination.

When we are sending troops into a conflict situation, they must be given appropriate personal protective equipment, including vaccination against whatever the threat is, and clearly covid is a big threat at the moment. The Government have a duty of care to those in the armed forces to ensure that they are able to carry out their duties and that operations are not threatened by illness. There is a potential threat to national security as well. Why have the Government not prioritised the armed forces for vaccination, regardless of whether they are serving at home or abroad? Can the Minister assure me that from this point on, personnel will not be deployed overseas without receiving both doses of vaccine? How many Royal Navy ships have had to restrict their operations due to covid outbreaks?

[James Heappey]

First, I would like to challenge the hon. Lady: I am not sure that correcting the assertion that there had been 80 positive cases with the fact that there had been 24 shows pride in that fact; it is just correcting the record in response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) in the first place.

It is certainly the case that everybody who is deploying on operations now has been jabbed. That goes without saying given that we are now at the stage where everybody under the age of 40 has had their jab. It is not necessarily the case that everybody has had two jabs and not necessarily possible to accelerate that. The Royal Anglian battlegroup, for example, who have just deployed to Mali, have had their first jab. They will receive their second when the appropriate period of time has passed between jabs. Otherwise there is no point in jabbing them because the effectiveness of the vaccination will not be as high as it should be. However, we have certainly reached a point in the vaccination programme where everybody who is being deployed has been vaccinated.