Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to include unpaid carers and adult household contacts of clinically extremely vulnerable people on the priority list for a booster covid-19 vaccine; and if he will make a statement.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s (JCVI) interim advice is that COVID-19 booster vaccinations should first be offered to the most vulnerable.

The JCVI’s interim advice recommends a two-staged approach, with individuals in stage one offered a booster vaccine as well as a flu vaccine, as soon as possible from September 2021. Individuals in stage two offered a booster vaccine as soon as practicable after stage one, with equal emphasis on deployment of the flu vaccine where eligible. The JCVI advises that unpaid carers and the adult household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals should be offered a COVID-19 booster vaccine.

Final decisions on the timing and scope and cohort eligibility of any COVID-19 vaccine booster programme will be confirmed once the JCVI has provided their final advice.