Sturgeon: Scots must be open to vaccine passports

VACCINE passports are still on the table for Scotland and ‘we should not close our minds’ to anything which allows moves towards more normality, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The First Minister yesterday said private companies are already looking to use certification that proves customers and service users have had a Covid jab.

And she said governments must consider if and how passports should be rolled out more generally.

Speaking to the Scottish Parliamentary Journalists’ Association, Miss Sturgeon confirmed four nation talks on the issue are ongoing.

She said: ‘We will have to reach our own decisions. I have said before that we should not close our minds to anything that helps us get back to a position of greater normality.’

She added: ‘The question for governments is to what extent we encourage or mandate vaccine certification in different circumstances.

‘These are things we’ve got to work through very carefully... and in a way in which the public feels involved and not in a position where governments are designing these things behind closed doors.’

Miss Sturgeon raised ethical issues around using vaccine passports in domestic settings, as jabs are not yet authorised for younger people.

Earlier this week, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said his party opposed vaccine passports, amid fears it would it would be bringing in ID cards through the backdoor. The party’s Scottish leader Willie Rennie called for a four nations approach.