Gavin Williamson backs ‘Covid passport’ system to ease lockdown

Gavin Williamson today backed a ‘Covid passport’ system for people to prove they have tested negative or had a vaccine help open up pubs and sporting events.

The Education Secretary said he personally would ‘do anything’ to be able to go to the cinema or out to a restaurant. 

The idea of using the NHS app to demonstrate people are clear of the virus is understood to be under consideration as part of the government’s drive to get the country up and running again.

Individuals would be able to show that they have either had a jab or tested negative – maintaining their choice about getting vaccinated.

Government sources stressed that no decisions have been taken and work is at an early stage. But supporters say such a concept could help theatres, cinemas, sporting venues and workplaces get back towards normality more quickly. 

Asked about the idea of Covid passports during a round of interviews this morning, Mr Williamson said: ‘I think I would probably do pretty much sort of anything to be able to enjoy all those lovely things.

‘I think the idea of going to a restaurant with your family or going to the theatre is something we all really want to see.’

Asked if the passports will become a reality, he told LBC: ‘Michael Gove is being charged with actually looking at this. 

‘There are many challenges with this and it’s really important to look right across the spectrum, at both the benefits it would bring but also some of the challenges it could bring.’

Boris Johnson yesterday cast doubt on the idea that only people who have been vaccinated would get access to services and venues, saying it could be ‘discriminatory’ against people who ‘genuinely’ refuse jabs or cannot have them for valid reasons.

But the PM has ordered Mr Gove to carry out a review of whether a wider system of Covid certification can be used to help reopen the UK. 

On a visit to a school in South London yesterday, Mr Johnson said there were ‘deep and complex issues’ involved in taking the ‘novel’ step of asking people to prove things about their health to access businesses or services.

‘We can’t be discriminatory against people who for whatever reason people can’t have the vaccine, there might be medical reasons why people can’t have a vaccine,’ he said.

‘Or some people may genuinely refuse to have one. I think that’s a mistake, I think everybody should have a vaccine, but we need to thrash all this out.’ 

He added: ‘We’ve got time, because what we’re doing is rolling out the vaccination programme, and that will go on for the next couple of months, and in the interval what I want to see is a proper review into the issue, and that’s going to be led by Michael Gove, by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who will be getting the best scientific, moral, philosophical, ethical viewpoints on it – and we’ll work out the way forward.

‘I know fervent libertarians will object, but other people will think that there is a case for it.

‘When you look at the international side of things, international travel, there’s no question that that’s where a lot of countries will be going, and they will be insisting on vaccine passports in the way that people used to insist on evidence that you’d been inoculated against yellow fever or whatever. So it’s going to come on the international stage, whatever.’ 

Meanwhile, Sir Jonathan Montgomery, who has led an evidence review into vaccine passports, has warned the idea will come too late to save nightclubs and bars in the summer because most young people won’t have both doses until the autumn.

The PM confirmed on Monday that a study into vaccine and testing certificates will be one of four major reviews carried out alongside the easing of lockdown restrictions.

The announcement came after months of mixed messages that saw vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi suggest they would be ‘discriminatory’.

Ministers had previously insisted the idea was being considered only to unlock foreign trips, with Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggesting that travellers could request a vaccination record from their GP to allow them to visit countries that required proof of inoculation status.