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The government has accepted the recommendation from the UK’s chief medical officers that children aged 12 to 15 should be offered a first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine and invitations will start being sent out next week.

Making the announcement in the Commons, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “We will now move with the same sense of urgency we’ve had at every point in our vaccination programme.”

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “I have accepted the recommendation from the Chief Medical Officers to expand vaccination to those aged 12 to 15 – protecting young people from catching COVID-19, reducing transmission in schools and keeping pupils in the classroom.

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Jabs for kids: ‘Benefits exceed risks’

“I am very grateful for the expert advice I have received from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and UK Chief Medical Officers.”

It comes after the chief medical officers said offering jabs to 12 to 15-year-olds would be a “useful tool” in reducing disruption to their education.

In their advice to the government, they said they were making the recommendation on “public health grounds” and it was “likely vaccination will help reduce transmission of COVID-19 in schools”.

The move means around three million children will now be eligible for the jab, which is expected to be administered through schools.

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The consent of parents, guardians and carers will be sought prior to vaccination, but the Health Secretary told Sky News last week that children would get the “final say” over whether or not they get a jab.

Addressing this in his statement to MPs, Mr Zahawi said: “In the rare event that there is a situation a parent does not consent but the child or the teenager wants to have the vaccine, then there is a process by which the school age vaccination clinician will bring initially the parent and the child to see whether they can reach consensus and if not, if the child is deemed to be competent, then the vaccination will take place.”

Analysis by Ashish Joshi, health correspondent

Recognising the potential for sending mixed messages, Professor Chris Whitty explained why there was no conflict.

The JCVI had a narrow remit, only to look at the immediate health impact of vaccination on these children.

But, and this is the key difference, the CMOs looked at the much wider impact of COVID-19 on this age group including disruption to education, mental health, protection from long COVID, the impact of isolation on social skill development and so on.

When looked at in this way, it was decided the vaccination offers much more than a marginal health gain.

This makes sense.

But to have two key decisions that look like they disagree with each other makes public health communication problematic.

Parents are already confused and conflicted.

Prof Whitty says he has no regrets over the messaging saying instead he would regret getting the decision wrong.

Professor Wei Shen Lim from the JCVI told me he did not feel undermined. Of course they are both correct.

Two separate panels looking at the same issue through two separate lenses are likely to arrive at different outcomes.

The explanation stands up to scrutiny.

But successful vaccination programmes rely on high take up. Unfortunately that might have been undermined by the way the advice has been delivered.

The minister told the Commons that vaccines “are our best defence against this virus”.

“Our jabs have already prevented over 112,000 deaths, more than 143,000 hospitalisations and over 24 million infections,” he said.

“They have built a vast wall of defence for the British people.”

He added that there is a “comprehensive” surveillance strategy in place to monitor the safety of the COVID vaccines and continued: “It is important to remember that our teenagers have shown great public spirit at every point in this pandemic. They have stuck to the rules so that lives could be saved and people kept safe.

“They have been some of the most enthusiastic proponents of vaccines. This is at least in part because they have experienced the damage that comes with outbreaks of COVID-19.”

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Decision on vaccinating children ‘more difficult’

Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the party backed the government’s approach, but urged ministers to provide as much information to parents as they can.

He also posed a series of questions to the vaccines minister, including whether parental consent would be needed and whether the jabs would be administered through an existing NHS programme for other vaccines for children.

Mr Zahawi said in response that the NHS was “incredibly efficient and well equipped” in providing inoculations to children already and that an existing programme which visits schools would be used for the COVID jabs.

But Tory MP Dr Caroline Johnson said she was not “comfortable” with vaccinating teenagers to avoid “educational disruption”, while former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith warned of the risk of “family disputes” over whether children should take up the offer of a jab.

Conservative MP and former minister Steve Baker urged the government to guarantee that “a child’s ability to receive an education equally with their peers will never be linked to their vaccination status”.

Mr Zahawi said in response: “That will not be used in any way. The whole purpose of this is to accept the clinical advice and protect children.”

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What do teenagers think of COVID vaccine?

The recommendation from the CMOs followed a decision from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation not to recommend mass vaccination of 12 to 15-year-olds on health grounds alone.

Explaining the rationale for their decision, the JCVI said the virus poses a very low risk to healthy children and inoculating them would only provide a marginal benefit.

But they did say that other issues, such as education, should be taken into account and considered by the CMOs in making their final decision.

Speaking earlier at a Downing Street news conference, the JCVI’s Professor Wei Shin Lim said there was “no conflict” between the stances of the JCVI and the CMOs, adding that the JCVI had looked at the question from a health perspective.

Mr Zahawi said further guidance would be sought from the JCVI before any decision is made on whether to offer second doses.

Speaking on the eve of Prime Minister Boris Johnson setting out his winter plan to manage COVID in the months to come, the vaccines minister told MPs that the government wanted to deliver an “ambitious” programme of booster jabs.

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Why Boris’s best mate is off to Reform

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Why Boris's best mate is off to Reform

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈       

Former Conservative chairman and friend of Boris Johnson – Sir Jake Berry – is defecting to Reform UK, causing more problems for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

On today’s episode, Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy discuss if his defection will divide parts of Reform policy.

Elsewhere, the Anglo-French summit gets under way, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hoping to announce a migration deal with French President Emmanuel Macron to deter small boat crossings.

Plus, chatter around Whitehall that No10 are considering a pre-summer reshuffle, but will it have any value?

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Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

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Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

The trial is part of Project Acacia, an initiative from the RBA exploring how digital money and tokenization could support financial markets in Australia.

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Starmer and Macron agree need for ‘new deterrent’ to stop small boat crossings

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Starmer and Macron agree need for 'new deterrent' to stop small boat crossings

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed the need for a “new deterrent” to deter small boats crossings in the Channel, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister met Mr Macron this afternoon as part of the French president’s state visit to the UK, which began on Tuesday.

High up the agenda for the two leaders is the need to tackle small boat crossings in the Channel, which Mr Macron said yesterday was a “burden” for both the UK and France.

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The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.

Sir Keir is hoping he can reach a deal for a one-in one-out return treaty with France, ahead of the UK-France summit on Thursday, which will involve ministerial teams from both nations.

The deal would see those crossing the Channel illegally sent back to France in exchange for Britain taking in any asylum seeker with a family connection in the UK.

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However, it is understood the deal is still in the balance, with some EU countries unhappy about France and the UK agreeing on a bilateral deal.

French newspaper Le Monde reports that up to 50 small boat migrants could be sent back to France each week, starting from August, as part of an agreement between Sir Keir and Mr Macron.

A statement from Downing Street said: “The prime minister met the French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street this afternoon.

“They reflected on the state visit of the president so far, agreeing that it had been an important representation of the deep ties between our two countries.

“Moving on to discuss joint working, they shared their desire to deepen our partnership further – from joint leadership in support of Ukraine to strengthening our defence collaboration and increasing bilateral trade and investment.”

It added: “The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions.

“The prime minister spoke of his government’s toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats.

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“The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.”

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, seized on the statement to criticise Labour for scrapping the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, which the Tories claim would have sent asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” to Rwanda.

He said in an online post: “We had a deterrent ready to go, where every single illegal immigrant arriving over the Channel would be sent to Rwanda.

“But Starmer cancelled this before it had a chance to start.

“Now, a year later, he’s realised he made a massive mistake. That’s why numbers have surged and this year so far has been the worst in history for illegal channel crossings.

“Starmer is weak and incompetent and he’s lost control of our borders.”

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