Boris Johnson calls for ‘national debate’ on mandatory vaccination to protect UK from Covid

Boris Johnson has raised the prospect of mandatory vaccines for the public, calling for a “national conversation” about how to defend the country from future Covid threats.

As the Prime Minister outlined a host of Plan B measures, he said the country could not “keep going indefinitely” introducing restrictions “just because a substantial proportion of the population still sadly, has not got vaccinated”.

Last week, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, called on countries to introduce compulsory vaccinations. The rules have been introduced in Austria and are under discussion in Germany.

Questioned about mandatory vaccination, the Prime Minister said he had been very reluctant to consider such moves, but now thought a debate was needed.

He told a Downing Street press conference: “I didn't want us to have a society in a culture where we forced people to get vaccinated; I don’t think that’s ever been the way we do things in this country”.

Mr Johnson said “incredible public-spiritedness” meant huge proportions of the public had chosen to be vaccinated.

But he said that if the vaccines are found to be effective against the omicron variant, discussions about how to drive continued uptake may be required.

“I want to be absolutely clear, I don't believe we can keep going indefinitely with non-pharmaceutical interventions, I mean, restrictions on people's way of life just because a substantial proportion of the population still sadly, has not got vaccinated,” he said.

“I think we do need to have a national conversation about the way forward,” saying that it was important to protect those who cannot be vaccinated, for medical reasons.

Britain has one of the highest uptakes of Covid vaccines. But more than five million people - around 12 per cent of the population - have yet to have their first jab.

In November, the Government introduced new laws mandating jabs for care workers. The threat of the moves boosted take-up, but also saw an exodus of staff from the sector.

Mandatory jabs are planned for NHS frontline staff from April, with the moves delayed over the winter amid concern about the loss of staff when the service is under pressure.

On Wednesday the NHS opened bookings for booster jabs to seven million people aged 40 and over, following promises to accelerate the rollout.

Health chiefs are urging all those eligible to book slots online, with the minimum gap between second and third dose cut to three months.

Latest figures show just over 21 million people have had booster jabs of around 27 million who were eligible, until the changes were made.

The changes mean almost 44 million people over the age of 18 are now eligible for boosters.

But the NHS is currently restricting bookings to those aged 40 and over, as well as younger people with some underlying health conditions, and has so far been unable to say when its systems will open to cohorts below the age of 40.

A Downing Street source on Wednesday night sought to clarify the comments by making clear the Government was not proposing to bring in mandatory vaccines.