Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Sars CoV-2 for cancer patients (SOAP) study on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines for cancer patients, what plans the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has (1) to change, and (2) to apologise for, its statements about (a) the scientific efficacy of the size of study, (b) that study's evaluation of T Cell responses, and (c) that study's lack of consistency of immunological markers, and its conclusion that the study provides no data of relevance for policy recommendations to be made.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) was sent the pre-print article on 15 March 2021, which was discussed at its meeting on 16 March 2021. The minutes of the meeting will be published in due course.

The JCVI has not made any public statements on this study. JCVI has reassured the public that lower immune responses following vaccination do not necessarily infer weaker or absent protection against disease.