Government scraps mandatory vaccine passports

On BBC One’s Andrew Marr show Sajid Javid confirmed that plans for domestic vaccine passports in England were on the way out, even before they were formally brought in: ‘We should keep it in reserve,’ he said of the government’s plans to link vaccine status to entry into nightclubs, but ‘I’m pleased to say we will not be going ahead with plans for vaccine passports.’

Vaccine passports have been a roller-coaster policy for months now, with claims made by members of the Cabinet at the start of the year that they weren’t being considered: that nothing so ‘discriminatory’, in the words of vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi, would be implemented. Since then, plans to introduce them have been announced, an NHS app has been rolled out that downloads the passport onto your phone.

Now the government has backtracked. This morning the health secretary made the case for scrapping Covid certification. With such a successful vaccine rollout, Javid argued, passports are a tool no longer needed.