I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) has said. I shall begin, as others have done, with the impact assessment—or the lack of one. I hope that the Minister will, on reflection,
accept that it is simply wrong to bring these measures forward without giving the House the impact assessment in advance. She still has the opportunity to do something about this by withdrawing these measures and coming back at a later date, and I hope she will consider that.
This is a very serious innovation. Imposing a legal requirement for people to undertake a medical intervention, maybe against their will, is a remarkable change in our law. As the hon. Member for Twickenham said, it sets a serious precedent, and it is a precedent that the Minister herself slightly alarmingly raised when she said that covid and flu would be a problem as the winter approached. As yet, we are not talking about compulsory vaccination for flu, but once we begin down that road, where does it end?
The scope of this measure is unnecessary. As I said in my intervention, insisting that people are vaccinated even if they will have no contact whatsoever with residents of care homes is entirely unreasonable. The application of the measure to a plumber who comes to fix a boiler, or to a trustee of a charity who may go to sit in an office but have no contact in any of the areas where residents would be, would be unreasonable. The measure is also inconsistent. Why does it apply only to care workers and not more widely in the healthcare sector?