Is the government bluffing on vaccine passports?

Over the past week, the government have been upping the ante when it comes to calls for vaccine passports. Long gone are the days when ministers went out on the airwaves to declare that the UK was not a ‘papers please’ country. Instead, the Prime Minister has already declared that they will be needed to enter nightclubs from September while Dominic Raab this week promised to provide prior warning if – as has been reported – vaccine passports become mandatory for students at university.

However, it’s something else that Raab said in that same interview that has set the cat among the pigeons. The Foreign Secretary also said that vaccine passport messages are a form of ‘coaxing and cajoling’ that can encourage take-up. He pointed to France where Emmanuel Macron’s threat that double-vaccination would be needed to engage in various activities led to a jump in take-up rates.