Vaccine deadline for NHS staff set to be pushed back
COMPULSORY Covid vaccines for NHS workers would be delayed for six months, under eleventh-hour plans being considered by Boris Johnson to help quell a revolt among Tory MPs.
Last night, just two weeks before the NHS is due to begin sacking staff who have not had a jab, a Whitehall source said that the requirement is likely to be “kicked down the road”, amid demands by Conservative backbenchers for it to be dropped entirely.
The disclosures come ahead of a crucial fortnight for Mr Johnson, as disaffected MPs prepare to submit letters of no confidence if a report by civil servant Sue Gray implicates the Prime Minister in wrongdoing over the alleged illicit parties held in Downing Street despite Covid restrictions imposed by No10.
One option for Mr Johnson is to call his own vote of no confidence, daring MPs to vote against the Government. A source admitted that, in the event of a secret ballot triggered by 54 Tory MPs “a substantial number” of disaffected ministers and ministerial aides would be likely to vote to oust the Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, last night, Mark Spencer, the Chief Whip, identified himself as the subject of claims by Nusrat Ghani, a vice chair of the Conservatives’ 1922 committee, that her “Muslimness” was raised at a meeting that led to her sacking in a 2020 reshuffle. Mr Spencer insisted the allegations were false, adding: “I have never used those words attributed to me.”
All front-line NHS staff are required to have had two jabs by April 1, but more than 80,000 – 6 per cent of the workforce – remain unvaccinated.
The plan being considered is to overhaul the requirement so that staff would, in theory, be required to have their booster too. The deadline would also be delayed by six months, ostensibly to give workers time to get their third jab. Such a delay is likely to reassure some MPs opposed to the move that it will ultimately not transpire. Yesterday, hundreds of anti-vax protesters, including NHS employees, carried banners reading “freedom of choice” and “no vaccine mandate”.
Separately, ministers are planning to make it easier to stop universal credit payments to those claimants who fail to look for work, amid record numbers of job vacancies.