Plans to let pub landlords check Covid status face backlash

MPs and scientists say vaccine passports cross line of individual freedom and could create two-tier health system

The government is facing a backlash from some MPs and scientists over the suggestion that pubs could be permitted to require Covid certification as a condition of entry – either a recent test or a vaccine.

Pubs which request that customers show their Covid status – likely to be in the form of a modified NHS app – could be allowed to drop social distancing rules. That would be a profitable incentive for pubs, as well as for citizens to get a test.

A number of MPs as well as industry figures and scientists have expressed doubt about the proposal, which is subject to a government review. Boris Johnson endorsed the idea of letting landlords use their discretion. He said he believed the public wanted to visit places where they would feel safe.

The Labour shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, said ministers should not leave the use of vaccine passports to the “discretion” of pub landlords if they thought it was the right move for public health.

“I don’t think that’s really the thing that is going to persuade people to get the vaccine. I think we’ve done brilliantly in this country at rolling out the vaccine and people taking up the vaccine and the key thing is a campaign of persuasion for people to take up the vaccine,” he said.

Miliband said the prime minister had not actually provided evidence the step was necessary.“If the government has got evidence that this is necessary for people to go to hospitality venues, let’s look at that evidence. That isn’t quite what the prime minister said yesterday,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

“And indeed if it was necessary, why would you be leaving it up to individual landlords? If this was really a public health measure, you wouldn’t be saying, ‘Well, it is going to be a landlord discretion.’ You’d be saying, ‘This is the government’s view, this is what’s safe.’ So there are many, many unanswered questions about this.”

The Sage adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said he believed vaccine passports “crosses that line of individual freedoms and public health” and said there were better ways to incentivise public health measures.

“I think public health totally depends on trust and a sense of ownership by all of us,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I think passports and certificates may be necessary and there may be political reasons for doing them. But I would prefer to see persuasion and engagement and trust in the system that it would work for all of us.”

Johnson told the liaison committee of MPs on Wednesday he had been “thinking very deeply” about the issue. “My impression is that there is a huge wisdom in the public’s feeling about this and people instinctively recognise when something is dangerous and they can see that Covid is collectively a threat, and they want us as their government and me as the prime minister to take all the actions I can to protect them,” he said.

The Tory MP William Wragg, who was questioning Johnson at the liaison committee, said he could not imagine the prime minister supporting the certification “in a past life” as a Daily Telegraph columnist.

Steve Baker, the Conservative deputy chair of the Covid Recovery Group of lockdown-sceptic MPs, said it was “a dangerous path” and hinted it could drive more MPs to vote against the government at the renewal of coronavirus rules on Thursday.

He said: “A two-tier Britain that prevents pregnant women from taking part in society, given that the government is telling them not to take the vaccine, or one where we turn back the clock and tolerate businesses turning away customers from communities which have shown an unfortunate hesitancy to take up the offer of a vaccine. We must not fall into this ghastly trap.”

The chair of the British Pub Confederation, Greg Mulholland, told the Sun that checks would be an extra burden for pubs. “On top of having to take on extra staff to serve people at tables, the idea pubs can take on staff to act as door staff for vaccine passports is absurd.”

A Whitehall source stressed the consultation was in its early stages and that no decision had been made, but said it was a measure being considered as part of the social distancing review ordered by Johnson when he set out the roadmap for easing restrictions. A separate review is also looking at how Covid certification could work in practice.

source: Jessica Elgot

Levant