Government rules out Covid vaccine passports for essential shops, public services and trains

Boris Johnson has given a clear hint that “vaccine passports” are likely to be voluntary in pubs, after intense pressure from MPs not to make them a requirement for drinkers.

In a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister stressed that the government was “some way off finalising any plans for Covid certification in the UK”.

And a document released by No 10 made clear that the most likely venues to require Covid-status certificates would be theatres, nightclubs, festivals and sporting events, while they would be ruled out on public transport, in shops, and for users of essential public services.

The document said use in hospitality settings, such as pubs and restaurants, will be subject to further consultation with the industry, much of which has voiced horror at the idea of having to set up checkpoints at bar doors.

And, crucially, it suggested that certificates “could play a role in reducing social distancing requirements” in these venues, indicating that landlords could opt voluntarily to use a state-authorised scheme in order to be able to promise a more relaxed atmosphere for guests.

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Around 70 MPs from across parliament last week issued a warning that vaccine passports would be “dangerous, discriminatory and counterproductive”, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said their use in pubs would go against “the British instinct”.

Despite indicating that the certificates wouldn’t be required in pubs for stages two and three of lockdown-easing, the prime minister did not rule out their use indefinitely.

A government source said that while the inclusion of pubs was still “on the table”, the government was focused on mass-attendance events, with a series of trials taking place over the coming weeks to test the practicality of the scheme.

Pilots will begin at a Liverpool comedy club on 16 April, before taking in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, the World Snooker Championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, a running event at Hatfield, and a cinema, business conference and nightclub in Liverpool, with the aim of admitting 20,000 football fans to the FA Cup Final at Wembley on 15 May.

An interim report on four government reviews into life after lockdown, released on Monday, said that no decisions had yet been reached on going ahead with a certification scheme, a traffic-light system for international travel, or the eventual removal of social-distancing rules.

If approved, any certification scheme would cover not only people who have been vaccinated but also those with proof of a recent test, and those with antibodies due to having had the disease within the past six months.

It also argued that Covid-status certification could “help manage risks where large numbers of people are brought together in close proximity”.

Mr Johnson described the interim report as “early thinking”, and ruled out introducing any vaccine-passport scheme as part of the planned relaxation of lockdown rules on 12 April or 17 May.

“There is absolutely no question of people being asked to produce certification or a Covid-status report when they go to the shops or the pub garden or the hairdressers on Monday,” he said.

“On May 17, as you know, we’re hoping to go for the opening of indoor hospitality – we’re not planning for anything of that kind at that stage.”

Labour has expressed its “many reservations” over the scheme. Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth warned that people may feel they were being forced into having a jab.

“All the evidence has always suggested that if you want to maintain confidence in vaccination, you don’t make it compulsory, don’t force people to be vaccinated – you encourage people, you persuade people,” he said.

“My worry with what the government are suggesting is they are effectively trying to force people into taking a vaccine, and I think in the end that will be counterproductive.”

The prime minister accepted that there are “complicated ethical and practical issues” at play, as many people will be unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons or because they are pregnant.

“You've got to be very careful in how you handle this, and [that you] don't start a system that's that discriminatory,” he said.

Experts have also raised concerns over the feasibility of enshrining vaccine passports in UK law.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said the scheme would come under “enormous scrutiny”.

“Who of us wouldn't think that vaccine passports were in general a good thing, if people felt a bit safer and more people were vaccinated and we had more assurance of that?” he told Times Radio.

“And yet, one or two sentences into the discussion, you get rather sort of bogged down at the devil is in the detail, and there are an awful lot of confounders there where you could make some very, very poor legislation.”

NHS Providers, which represents all English health trusts, warned there was still “a long way to go” in bringing Covid-19 under control.

“We can’t let our guard down yet and we must be ready for a possible spike in Covid-19 cases in the coming weeks,” said deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery. “Covid-19 is still here, it’s still highly contagious, and people are still losing their lives to this terrible disease.”