Minister says ‘up to businesses’ on requiring proof of vaccination

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The use of Covid ‘vaccine passports’ to help businesses reopen post-lockdown could put venues at risk from possible claims for discrimination, a cinema boss warns.

Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Cinema Association, said requiring proof of receipt of a coronavirus jab presented ‘a range of practical and legal problems’.

His comments came after the PM suggested rapid testing will be used over vaccine passports to support businesses re-opening once lockdown restrictions ease.

Boris Johnson did not not completely rule out using domestic immunity passports, saying on Monday the Government will ‘look at everything’.

But vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi today said it is ‘up to businesses’ to decide if they want to require proof of vaccination before serving customers.

Mr Clapp said he was not aware of any UKCA member considering vaccine passports or rapid testing as ‘a viable way forward’.

He said: ‘The use of vaccine passports in particular presents a range of practical and legal problems.

‘At this moment in time, and in the medium term of course, the ongoing rollout of the vaccine makes this impractical, but even when that programme is complete, there will be a number of groups of who will not have been vaccinated for a range of legitimate reasons – some people with disabilities, pregnant women and young people amongst them.

‘Making the proof of vaccination a condition of entry would open up cinemas (as it would other venues) to a host of possible claims for discrimination.’

Mr Clapp added the £3-4 cost and result turnaround of rapid tests posed a ‘no less challenging’ situation.

‘Asking an audience of 250 each to take the test and wait 30 minutes before seeing a two-hour film seems impractical, as is asking customers to pay what equates in many instances to a 50 per cent uplift on their cinema ticket,’ he said.

Mr Clapp said cinemas had previously proved their ability to provide ‘rigorous safeguards’, adding that no Covid-19 case had been traced to a UK cinema site.

‘With the same or similar measures in place as necessary, we look forward to welcoming people back to the big screen when allowed,’ he added.

David Chadwick, chief executive of Verifiable Credentials Ltd, a company developing ‘vaccine certificate’ technology, emphasised the importance of data privacy and the need for common standards to ensure compatibility between systems.

He said at least 60 companies worldwide were looking at verifiable credential technology, adding: ‘It’s really important that if we do have Covid certificates that they follow some international standard.’

Mr Chadwick said his business was focused on technical details, adding that legal and ethical decisions should be taken by the Government and ‘recipients’ of certificate data, for example leisure venues.

Verifiable Credentials Ltd has received government funding to provide cryptographic software to East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust for its issuing of vaccine certificates to its staff.

The company does not see people’s personal data as part of the trial. It is also planning to trial its technology, using dummy data, with a theatre and cinema complex.

The initiative would explore whether customers could present their ticket alongside an NHS verified vaccine certificate to be scanned by a verifier app.

Certificates on someone’s smartphone could carry the type of vaccine a person has received and the validation signed by the NHS.

Mr Chadwick, also an emeritus professor of information systems security at the University of Kent, warned of the risk that ‘criminal gangs’ could exploit testing and vaccine certificate systems.

‘If whatever system they introduce is just paper based and allows forgery, gangs are going to be selling them for hundreds of pounds,’ he said.

Mr Chadwick said vaccine and test certificates were an ‘equally valid’ approach, as long as the NHS information available was enough to link them to a person while also preventing fraud.

He said the risk of relying on certificates could in part be on the recipient of the information, adding that the Government faced a ‘tricky’ decision on how to potentially permit them.

‘The recipient is the person who is risking everything, so if you are a cinema complex or you’re an overseas country and you’re allowing people to enter, you’re the one who’s taking the risk, you are the one that is allowing potentially the virus to spread,’ he said.

Mr Zahawi today ruled out a domestic ‘vaccine passport’ as he said the vaccination programme and mass-testing are the best tools for getting back to normal.

He confirmed the Government is working on a form of vaccine certificate which people will be able to ask for should it be a requirement for travelling to a specific country. 

But his suggestion that firms could decide for themselves whether to ask for proof of vaccination is likely to cause controversy. 

Mr Zahawi’s comments raise the prospect of shops, pubs and restaurants refusing entry to customers if they cannot prove they have been vaccinated against coronavirus. 

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Zahawi said that ‘if other countries will require a vaccine certificate then I think it is right that we facilitate it’.

But he added: ‘We are not looking at the domestic use of vaccine passports. That is not in our planning. As the Prime Minister described it will be the national vaccination programme combined with rapid testing that I think is the way forward.’

Told that some cinemas are reportedly planning to require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, Mr Zahawi said: ‘At the moment you have your health data which is held by the national immunisation and vaccination system which your GP has access to and of course if you are on the NHS app you can look at your own health records.

‘We want to make that certificate accessible to people if they need it for international travel, if countries require it.

‘We are not planning a domestic passport for our own domestic use.’

Mr Zahawi was pushed on the issue and was asked if he would want to see businesses like cinemas asking people for proof of vaccination. 

He replied: ‘Well, I just think, it is obviously up to businesses what they do but I think at the moment we don’t yet have the evidence of the effect of the vaccines on transmission.

‘It is much better, as the Prime Minister quite rightly focused on, that you look at rapid testing.

‘That is the way forward, combined with a national vaccination programme in the United Kingdom.’

More than 15million people in the UK have now received their first dose of a Covid vaccine – just over two months since the first jab was administered. 

The Government has now offered a jab to everyone in the top four priority groups – all those over the age of 70 and the clinically extremely vulnerable. 

The roll-out will now focus on the next five priority groups which include everyone over the age of 50. 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has pledged that all UK adults will be offered a Covid vaccine by autumn. 

Mr Zahawi’s comments came after Boris Johnson yesterday said Brits will not have to show a vaccine passport to go to the pub in future. 

Speaking during a visit to a community vaccination centre in Orpington, South East London, he said: ‘I think inevitably there will be great interest in ideas like can you show that you had a vaccination against Covid in the way that you sometimes have to show you have had a vaccination against Yellow Fever or other diseases in order to travel somewhere.

‘I think that is going to be very much in the mix down the road, I think that is going to happen. 

‘What I don’t think we will have in this country is – as it were – vaccination passports to allow you to go to, say, the pub or something like that.’