Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional steps he is taking to ensure that people working in retail and hospitality have rapid access to a covid-19 vaccine in (a) York and (b) other parts of the UK.

Retail and hospitality workers and taxi workers have not been prioritised for vaccination due to their occupations, in line with advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s (JCVI). For Phase 2 of the vaccination programme, the JCVI published its final advice on 13 April 2021. This advice sets out that the most effective way to minimise hospitalisations and deaths is to continue to prioritise people by age, as this is assessed to be the strongest factor linked to mortality, morbidity, and hospitalisations, as well as speed of delivery, which is crucial as we provide more people with protection from COVID-19 as quickly as possible.