Lib Dems demand Parliament vote on vaccine passports

The Liberal Democrats have demanded that MPs are given a vote on vaccine passports before they are introduced at the end of the month, in an urgent question in Parliament today.

Responding in Parliament, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi failed to offer clarity on whether MPs will be given a vote on the plans, instead only promising there would be "appropriate scrutiny".

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael MP said:

“Vaccine passports are illiberal, unworkable and will hit thousands of struggling businesses with extra costs and bureaucracy.

“The government is failing to address the concerns of those impacted and failing to listen its own backbenchers.

“Yet Nadhim Zahawi’s weasel words today suggest ministers are running scared of holding a vote in Parliament before vaccine passports are introduced.

“Never before in peacetime has any government in this country controlled where we can go, who with and what we can do. We cannot allow such a historic change to our civil liberties to be rushed through without proper parliamentary scrutiny.”