Does insisting that employees are vaccinated amount to indirect discrimination?

‘No jab, no job’ – a radical reform of public health procedures, employment law and human rights – is being pushed though without even a parliamentary debate, says Sean O’Grady

(PA)

With an insouciance remarkable even for this government, the prime minister’s official spokesperson overturned any number of conventions about employment law with a casual observation that any policy of “no jab, no job” in the workplace is a matter for individual companies. Even if it applied only to new recruits and not existing staff, it would still be a radical departure from most previous practice and, indeed, the prime minister’s official policy line set out as recently as April, when the spokesperson stated: “Taking a vaccine is not mandatory and it would be discriminatory to force somebody to take one.”

Being as helpful as ever, ministers previously inclined to reject the notion as “discriminatory” now sound more enthusiastic. The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, declares it “smart policy”, and the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, reckons it a “good idea”. Some months ago the justice secretary, Robert Buckland, was the very model of judicial caution, suggesting it would all have to be tested in court. Now he says it’s lawful, for freshly engaged staff.

MPs and peers of all parties, and the rest of us, must wonder how such a radical reform of public health procedures, employment law, and even human rights can be enacted without a parliamentary debate, let alone a proper bill, research and judicial review. It is, surely, taking the crown prerogative too far.