Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that people who for medical reasons cannot be vaccinated against certain infectious diseases remain protected in society and able to lead a normal life.

Those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons receive protection from many infectious diseases through ‘herd immunity’, which occurs as a result of high vaccination uptake rates within the wider population.

It is therefore critical that vaccination rates for all UK programmes remain as high as possible to protect those who cannot be vaccinated, and we are working to increase uptake across all of our vaccination programmes. In order to deliver that, the Department is reviewing all potential options – including the mandation of certain vaccines. This is why we are looking at making some vaccination programmes mandatory.