Vaccine passports must not become a backdoor route to other infringements on our liberties

Editorial: One way to avoid this would be to have temporary powers, perhaps lasting six months, that needed to be renewed by parliament when they lapsed

(The Independent)

What I don’t think we will have in this country,” Boris Johnson said in February, “is vaccination passports to allow you to go to, say, the pub or something like that.” The prime minister has travelled a long way in a short time. He said on Thursday that what ministers now prefer to call “Covid status certification” could provide “maximum confidence to businesses and customers”.

Mr Johnson will set out his thinking on Monday, when the interim findings of the government’s review of this highly sensitive issue is due to be published. There is little doubt that a form of vaccine passport will be needed for whatever international travel Britons can undertake because some other countries will insist on them.

But their domestic use in pubs, clubs, theatres and sports stadia is more problematic. Although such passports could increase take-up of the vaccine, which would be a good thing, the government must handle this issue with the utmost care. It will accept that the jab cannot be the only “freedom passport”, to use Mr Johnson’s language; not everyone can have it, so people would also be able to use the NHS app to show a recent negative test or that they had antibodies after previously contracting the virus.