the times | Wednesday December 2 2020 2GM 11
News
Coronavirus inoculations will be
recorded on patients’ GP files but yes-
terday Michael Gove downplayed
plans to provide vaccine passports.
The Cabinet Office minister said
there were no plans for an “immunity
passport” to allow access to hospitality
and entertainment venues. His assur-
ance comes less than a day after Nad-
him Zahawi, the vaccines minister, said
that venues might insist on seeing proof
that customers had been vaccinated.
The minutes of a meeting of the Joint
Committee on Vaccination and Immu-
nisation in August say, however, that
regulators are demanding that
“patient-level data” be recorded in any
vaccination programme as part of
efforts to monitor its effectiveness.
“This would require links to primary
care electronic healthcare records,” the
minutes state. They add that the NHS
and Department of Health were work-
ing on a system to “call patients for
vaccination and ensure that adminis-
tration was adequately captured”.
Mr Zahawi was asked on Monday
whether people vaccinated against the
coronavirus would receive a “passport”
to show that they had had the jab.
He told the World at One on Radio 4:
“We are looking at the technology. And,
of course, a way of people being able to
inform their GP that they have been
vaccinated... I think you’ll probably
find that restaurants and bars and cine-
mas and other venues, sports venues,
will probably also use that system.”
Mr Gove moved yesterday to correct
his colleague. He told BBC Breakfast on
BBC One: “I certainly am not planning
to introduce any vaccine passports and
I don’t know anyone else in govern-
ment [who is]... the most important
thing to do is make sure that we vacci-
nate as many people as possible.
“Individual businesses have the
capacity to make decisions about who
they will admit and why. But the mostimportant thing that we should be
doing at this stage is concentrating on
making sure the vaccine is rolled out.”
Despite Mr Gove’s assertion, the
Department for Transport has pro-
posed “vaccine stamps” to prove that
passengers have been inoculated.
Several airlines are testing Common-
Pass, an app backed by the World
Economic Forum that aims to provide
an internationally accepted proof of
coronavirus status.
Deborah Dunn-Walters, professor of
immunology at Surrey University, said:
“We need to understand more detail
about the exact protection any future
Covid-19 vaccine might provide before
knowing if vaccine passports are a
viable possibility to discuss.”
Julian Savulescu, co-director of the
Wellcome Centre for Ethics and
Humanities at Oxford University, said:
“It is unethical not to offer immunity
passports.
“The sole ground for restricting liber-
ty in a liberal society is when a person
represents a threat to others. If immu-
nity reduces transmission, those with
immunity represent no threat to others.
It is outrageous that their liberty is
being infringed.”
Faith in the vaccine, letters, page 30
Vaccinated people will be able to do more,
leading article, page 31Ministers have scrambled the govern-
ment’s message on Scotch eggs with
confusing messages on whether they
count as a “substantial meal” for would-
be drinkers in England.
Michael Gove became the second
cabinet member to wade into the
debate yesterday by claiming that
Scotch eggs were a starter before back-
tracking and saying they were definite-
ly a substantial meal.
The controversy began on Monday
when George Eustice, the environ-
ment, food and rural affairs secretary,
said that the eggs “probably would
count” as a meal under new coronavi-
rus rules in England.
Pubs in Tier 2 areas can reopen today
only if they serve customers a “table
meal” with their drinks. Downing
Street has refused to clarify the term
but insisted that it was well understood
in the hospitality industry because of
licensing laws that allow 16 and 17-year
olds to drink in such circumstances.
Asked about the rules, the prime
minister’s spokesman said: “I’m not
going to get into individual items and
meals. It’s for customers and venues toact reasonably and exercise judgment.
“In law a substantial table meal
should be the main lunchtime or even-
ing meal or a main course.”
Mr Gove, the Cabinet Office minis-
ter, initially told LBC Radio and Good
Morning Britain on ITV: “A couple of
Scotch eggs is a starter as far as I’m con-
cerned.” Later he told ITV News that “aScotch egg is a substantial meal”, add-
ing: “My own preference when it comes
to a substantial meal might be more
than just a Scotch egg, but that’s
because I’m a hearty trencherman.
“The government is relying on
people’s common sense.”
No 10 said there was “established
case law” on the definition. Conserva-Ministers make a meal of advice about Scotch eggs
Eleni Courea Political Reporter
tive MPs and legal experts have cited
the 1965 case of Timmis v Millman, said
to concern two men who had been
drinking past 11pm in a hotel bar when
this would be permitted only with food.
Justices found that their sandwiches
“were so substantial, and assisted by the
pickles and beetroot, so as to justify that
it was a table meal and not a mere snack
from the bar”.
Another relevant case is Solomon v
Green 1955, in which sandwiches and
sausages on sticks were found to consti-
tute a meal.
More than 57 per cent of England’s
population are now living under Tier 2
restrictions. A further 41 per cent are in
Tier 3 areas with harsher rules that al-
low pubs to operate only as takeaways.
Pubs are concerned about the lack of
clarity and say that the requirement to
offer a substantial meal is unfair. “It’s
outrageous you can have a pint in a
theatre, concert hall, cinema or sports
ground without a substantial meal, but
not the pub,” said Emma McClarkin,
chief executive of the British Beer and
Pub Association.
“These new regulations now make a
mockery of the great lengths we have
gone to in making our pubs safe.”15th-century snack or import from the Raj?
The only point of
agreement in the
history of the Scotch
egg is that it is unlikely
to be Scottish. The first
published recipe, from
1809, encased young
hen’s eggs in a mince of
leftover meat and offal,
served with gravy.
The most popular
explanations of its
origins are:North African
According to this
account, the dish wasimported from north
Africa via France in the
15th century. It tended
to be heavily spiced and
infused with cloves to
sweeten the often
putrefied meat.Indian
Food historians,
including Annette Hope
and Alan Davidson, link
its origins to the Indian
dish nargisi kofta, a
boiled egg stuffed
inside a shell of ground
lamb mixed with spices.Fortnum & Mason
The London store
claims to have invented
the Scotch egg in the
1700s for wealthy
patrons to snack on
while they travelled to
their country estates.North Yorkshire
In the 19th century
William J Scott & Sons
in Whitby served
“Scotties”, eggs covered
in creamy fish paste and
sprinkled with
breadcrumbs.News
Vaccine will go on
GP file but there’s
‘no passport plan’
Francis Elliott Political Editor
Michael Gove is concentrating on
ensuring the vaccine is made availableTIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOPCharity masks
‘were linked to
forced labour’
A charity set up by the Daily Mail to buy
protective equipment for NHS staff
donated 100,000 facemasks that are
suspected to have been made by Uighur
Muslims in a forced labour scheme.
The masks were bought from
Medwell Medical Products and flown
in from China by the newspaper’s Mail
Force campaign, which was launched
in April.
In July Medwell’s factory in the town
of Fenglin in Jiangxi province, eastern
China, was identified by The New York
Times as using suspected forced labour
from the Uighur minority.
Mail Force said that at the time the
masks had been purchased, it had been
unaware of the allegations about Med-
well.
A spokesman for the charity said:
“The masks in question represent
0.2 per cent of the 42 million items of
personal protective equipment we
delivered to the UK.
“We are implacably opposed to
forced labour of any kind.”