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 implications for his policies of the debate entitled Preventing vaccine discrimination, which took place at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 14 October 2022.

The vaccination programme has been designed to be fair to individuals and communities by removing barriers to access, while respecting and not discriminating against those who choose not to be vaccinated.

Due to the vaccination programme and ‘COVID-19 Response: Living with COVID-19’, the Government has removed domestic restrictions, while encouraging safer behaviours through public health advice, in common with longstanding ways of managing most other respiratory illnesses. COVID-19 status certification, including the NHS COVID travel pass, remains an important tool to allow individuals to demonstrate their COVID-19 vaccination status when travelling outside the United Kingdom.