Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of allowing health care workers to be exempt from mandatory covid-19 vaccination on religious grounds.

The Government considered which exemptions from vaccine requirements should be permitted informed by responses to the open consultation held from 9 September to 22 October. The majority of respondents agreed exemptions should be made only on medical grounds. An exemption on religious grounds could reduce the impact of protecting patients and workers, be difficult to implement and evidence and may also lead to tension in workplaces between religiously exempt workers and those to whom the requirements would still apply.