Boris Johnson was today facing a growing wave of opposition to the introduction of vaccine passports, as it emerged that Downing Street is considering making them mandatory for clothes shoppers.
The idea provoked horror among retailers, with one trade body saying that Covid-status certification was neither “appropriate or useful” on the high street.
With 40 or more Tory MPs threatening rebellion on a plan that one former minister said would usher in a “miserable dystopia of Checkpoint Britain”, the prime minister’s hopes of getting passports through parliament were hanging on a knife-edge.
Labour gave its strongest signal yet that it will oppose the current plans if they are put to a vote. The Liberal Democrats have declared they will oppose the measure, but the SNP is yet to say how or if it will vote when the issue comes to the Commons. Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said she was “open-minded” on the issue, and will look “very carefully” at whether certification could help society return to normal after the pandemic.
Controversy over vaccine passports burst into the open after an official government paper confirmed on Monday that they are “likely to become a feature of our lives” and made clear that a national scheme is being drawn up for their possible use to access nightclubs, theatres, festivals and sporting events, as well as international travel after the end of England’s lockdown on 21 June.
The document indicated that passports might be optional for pubs and restaurants, and ruled out asking people to prove their Covid status to use public transport or enter “essential” retail premises. But it did not spell out exactly which shops would be exempt.
Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson declined to rule out clothes shops being required to ask customers to show a smartphone app proving that they have either been vaccinated, recently tested positive or acquired immunity.
Steve Baker, the deputy chair of the Covid Recovery Group of lockdown-sceptic Tory backbenchers, blasted Covid status certificates as “discriminatory”, “un-British” and “entirely incompatible with freedom”.
“After the toll families and friends have paid all over the country in the face of Covid, and after enduring the devastating cycle of lockdowns and restrictions, the last thing we should do is allow Covid to have the victory of changing our country forever into the miserable dystopia of Checkpoint Britain,” he said.
And former Cabinet minister David Davis said it was “plain as a pikestaff” that once an ID card of this kind was introduced, ministers would seek to extend it to cover future outbreaks of diseases like flu, warning: “Once you’ve once you’ve established the software, it won’t stop there.”
The British Retail Consortium’s director of regulation Tom Ironside said stores were opposed to having to check customers’ Covid status at the door. “Having consulted with our retail members, we have concluded that neither voluntary nor compulsory vaccine certificates would be appropriate or useful in the retail setting,” he said.
And the chief executive of UK Hospitality, Kate Nicholls, said an optional scheme would leave pubs and restaurants with a “Hobson’s choice” between two bad alternatives.
Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “I’m not going to support a policy that ... if someone wants to go into Next or H&M, they have to produce a vaccination certificate on their phone, on an app. I think that’s discriminatory.”
While it “makes sense” to ask people to take a test before going to events such as a football match, “we don’t think asking you to produce a vaccination passport, which is this digital ID card, is fair”, he said.
And a senior Labour source said that “on the basis of what we’ve seen and discussed with ministers, we oppose the government’s plans”. The plans “appear poorly thought through, will put added burdens on business and run the risk of becoming another expensive Whitehall project that gets outsourced to friends of Tory ministers”, the source said.
A survey of 700 nightclub operators and other late-night entertainment venues found an overwhelming 69 per cent believe a passport scheme would damage their businesses, already battered by more than a year of closed doors.
The chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, Michael Kill, said there were “deep concerns” in the sector that potential customers will be put off going out by intrusive checks.
“If retail, supermarkets, public transport, hotels, pubs and restaurants are excluded … why would nightclubs and other venues be expected to ask customers to present Covid status certification as a prerequisite or requirement of entry?” asked Mr Kill.
Trials of vaccine passports and other Covid security measures are to be carried out at clubs, cinemas and sports events over the coming weeks, culminating in a bid to allow 20,000 football fans into Wembley for the FA Cup Final on 15 May.
But no final decision on whether to go ahead is expected before these pilots are complete, with the crucial vote likely to come as late as June. Former Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, wrote to the leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, to demand an early vote next week, before the “deeply divisive, illiberal and completely unnecessary” plans are developed further.
Speaking on a visit to a vaccine factory in Macclesfield, Mr Johnson said his focus was on inoculating the population, but added that vaccine passports were “going to be a fact of life, probably” for international travel and the government was looking at “the role of a number of signals that you can give that you are not contagious”.
The PM’s press secretary Allegra Stratton said there was “quite a long way to go” before the government would know what plans – if any – it will present to parliament.
Ms Stratton said Mr Johnson would reach out for “dialogue” with concerned Tory MPs, but added: “There isn’t yet a conversation to be had with backbenchers, because we haven’t yet got the proposals.”