Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the planned timescale is for the review of potentially using certificates showing a (a) covid-19 vaccination or (b) recent negative covid-19 test result.

The Government announced on 22 February that it will review whether COVID-19 status certification could play a role in reopening the economy, reducing restrictions on social contact and improving safety. This will include assessing to what extent certification would be effective in reducing risk, and the potential uses to enable access to settings or a relaxation of COVID-19 secure mitigations. The Government will also consider the ethical, equalities, privacy, legal and operational aspects of this approach and what limits, if any, should be placed on organisations using certification. It will draw on external advice to develop recommendations that take into account any social and economic impacts, and implications for disproportionately impacted groups and individuals’ privacy and security. COVID-19 status certification involves using testing or vaccination data to confirm in different settings that people have a lower risk of transmitting the virus to others.