Downing Street gives update on vaccine passports in pubs

It comes as the Government announced anyone wanting to enter a nightclub in England beyond the end of September would need to be fully vaccinated against coronavirus.

The announcement has been met with criticism by some politicians and business owners.

Night Time Industries Association chief executive Michael Kill accused the Government of “an absolute shambles”

But the idea of a vaccine passport could also be extended to other areas in life, with Downing Street failing to rule out its introduction in pubs.

When asked the question earlier today, Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said: “The Prime Minister talked about the sort of areas we were considering, and nightclubs are where there is significant evidence we have at the moment.

“But we’re going to use the coming weeks to look at the evidence, particularly both in the UK and globally before making a specific decision.”

Business minister Paul Scully has also revealed vaccine passports could be used at “larger ticketed events”, such as for football matches and concerts.

He claimed a number of sporting venues were already looking at voluntarily bringing in the use of vaccine passports.

On the subject of making vaccine passports mandatory, Mr Scully told Sky News he had reservations about the plan: “I’m not comfortable that Government is mandating anything frankly, I’m a very libertarian Conservative, I want to be able to back off – that’s why yesterday was an opportunity for Government to back off from so many different things and let people live their lives.

“But what we have to do is make sure that people will also live their lives safely, the NHS can function safely, and these are the challenges that we still have to do.

“So it’s incredibly frustrating, it’s incredibly complicated to work through the detail, but that’s the challenge we have.”

The use of mandatory vaccine passports means proof of a negative Covid test would no longer qualify for entry to a venue.