Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the JVCI recommendation to vaccinate 12 to 15 year olds against covid-19; and if he will make a statement.

In their advice of 3 September, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) suggested that the Government may wish to seek further views on the wider societal and educational impacts of universal vaccination of 12 to 15 year olds from the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), with representation from the JCVI in these subsequent discussions. Consequently, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and the UK health ministers wrote to the CMOs to ask that they consider the vaccination of 12 to 15 year olds from a broader perspective, as suggested by the JCVI.

The UK CMOs have recommended the extension of the offer of a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to all children and young people aged 12 to 15 years old on public health grounds. The Government has accepted this advice.