Sajid Javid MP: Oral Statement on Vaccines

Mr Deputy Speaker, with permission, I’d like to update the House on vaccination as a condition of deployment in our health and social care settings.

Return to Plan A

Last Thursday marked a new phase of this pandemic as we returned to Plan A. People are no longer advised to work from home, face coverings are no longer mandatory, organisations no longer have to require the NHS Covid Pass, and from today there’s no limit on the number of visitors allowed in care homes. Week by week, we are moving our COVID response from rules and restrictions to personal responsibility. We’re able to do this because of the defences we’ve built—vaccines, antivirals, testing, and surveillance.

Vigilance and Emerging Variants

COVID-19 is here to stay. While some countries maintain a zero-COVID strategy, we’re demonstrating how to live with this virus. Our guiding principle remains: achieve maximum protection of public health with the minimum intrusion on everyday life. Yet, we must remain vigilant. Cases and hospitalisations are falling overall, but we’re seeing rises in primary and secondary school children.

New variants and subvariants are part of living with COVID. Our health surveillance is monitoring the Omicron subvariant BA.2, classified as a “variant under investigation.” So far, 1,072 genomically confirmed cases of BA.2 have been identified in England. Early data from Denmark suggests BA.2 may be more transmissible, but there is no evidence of increased severity. Initial analysis of vaccine effectiveness against BA.2 shows a similar level of protection to symptomatic infection compared to BA.1, underlining the need for vaccination and boosters.

Importance of Vaccination in Health and Social Care

Vaccination is most important in our health and social care system. We have always prioritised the safety of vulnerable people. It is this government’s expectation that everyone working in health and social care does their professional duty to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

When consulting on vaccination as a condition of deployment, evidence showed vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant ranged between 65% and 80%. If you’re not infected, you can’t infect someone else. We balanced this clear benefit against the risk of workforce shortages in a time of near full employment.

In December, this House agreed that the clinical evidence in favour of compulsory vaccination outweighed the workforce risks. Since then, 19 out of 20 NHS workers have been vaccinated, an increase of 127,000 jabbed staff. In social care, 32,000 more people have been vaccinated, including 22,000 in care homes and 10,000 in domiciliary care. These efforts have raised our wall of protection and kept thousands of vulnerable people out of hospital this summer.

Policy Review and Next Steps

When we laid regulations last November, the Delta variant represented 99% of infections. Weeks later, Omicron became dominant, accounting for over 99% of cases. Over a third of the UK’s confirmed COVID-19 cases occurred in the last eight weeks. Given this shift, I sought fresh advice from the UK Health Security Agency and England’s Chief Medical Officer. Two new factors emerged:

• Greater population protection: 84% of people over 12 have had a primary course, and 64% have been boosted, including over 90% of over-50s.
• Less severe dominant variant: Omicron carries approximately half the risk of emergency care or hospital admission compared to Delta.

These changes mean it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment through statute. Accordingly, we will launch a consultation on ending this requirement in health and social care settings. Subject to responses and this House’s will, the government will revoke the regulations.

Professional Duty and Future Measures:

1. I have written to professional regulators to review guidance on vaccinations, emphasising registrants’ responsibilities.
2. I have asked the NHS to review hiring and deployment policies, taking vaccination status into account.
3. Officials will consult on updating the Department of Health’s code of practice for all CQC-registered providers, strengthening requirements on infection prevention and control.

Our work to promote vaccine uptake will continue. I thank NHS trusts and care homes for their relentless efforts to put patient safety first. I also thank the Shadow Health Secretary and the party opposite for their support. One reason we have among the highest vaccine uptake rates is the confidence built here in Parliament.

It is now in our national interest to enter this new phase, keeping the British people safe while showing the world how to successfully live with COVID-19. I commend this statement to the House.