Image source, Parliament TV

The health secretary says he has already announced £5.4bn for NHS Covid response over the next six months, including £1bn to tackle the backlog.

He says a consultation has been launched over making Covid and flu vaccinations mandatory for front-line healthcare and social care workers in England.

It is already a condition of deployment in CQC-registered adult care homes, he says.

Although he is "keeping an open mind" until the results of the consultation are in, he says he believes: "It is highly likely that front-line NHS staff and those working in wider social care settings will also have to be vaccinated to protect those around them and this will be an important step in protecting those at greatest risk".

Health Secretary Sajid Javid goes on to say that PCR testing will continue to be available free of charge, as will symptom-free lateral flow tests - adding they identify a quarter of all cases.

Contact tracing will continue through NHS test and trace system, he says.

For those still required to self-isolate, we will continue to offer practical and financial support to those eligible, he tells MPs. That will be reviewed at the end of March 2022.

Mr Javid says the government will be accepting the recommendations from vaccine experts this morning to rollout a booster programme, and the NHS in England expects this to begin next week.

The Welsh health minister also accepted the advice earlier.

Image source, Parliament TV

Health Secretary Sajid Javid begins his statement, telling MPs that Covid deaths are "mercifully low" compared to previous waves but there is a need to remain vigilant ahead of the winter.

A legal question of consentpublished at 12:35 British Summer Time 14 September 2021

12:35 BST 14 September 2021

Dominic Casciani
Home and Legal Correspondent

What happens if a child and their parent disagree over the vaccine?

The law is quite clear: there must be a test of whether the child understands what is being proposed and that their decision is in their best interests.

Under the law, children under 16-years-old who can prove that they understand the risks and benefits of a specific medical procedure can ask for the vaccine - or refuse to take it - if they disagree with what their parents want.

This legal test of whether a child can consent, external to a treatment is known as "Gillick competence" - named after a famous 1986 case in which a teenager wanted contraceptive advice without her mother's consent.

There's no lower limit to the test - but in practice it would be exceptional for a child under 13 to be judged Gillick competent.

Teenagers aged 16 and 17 don't need parental permission to have the vaccine, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Doctors can seek a court order to administer a medicine to a child where they can prove it is in their "best interests" to receive it, even if a parent or a child who has been assessed as Gillick competent child opposes.

So it's possible we may one day see a Covid vaccination case in the courts.

Last year, the Family Court intervened in a parental despite over vaccines - and the judge ordered that the children should be jabbed, external in accordance with the usual NHS schedule.

With one eye on the future, Mr Justice MacDonald said now was not the time to rule on Covid vaccinations - as they were then not available - but he noted it would be very difficult to foresee the courts ever stopping their administration to a child if the medical evidence was clear it was in their best interests.

Image source, PA Media

With the press conference by vaccine experts over, our attention now turns to the House of Commons.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid will be updating MPs on the government's plans for Covid over the autumn and winter, having attended a cabinet meeting this morning.

A Reuters journalist asks the panel how the UK will be able to break out of the cycle of "constantly boosting" its population, with fewer jabs then going to poorer countries.

Prof Wei Shen Lim from the JCVI says they have been "wrestling" with this question, adding that taking the "precautionary approach" and offering vaccinations every six months "would not be a good position to be in".

He adds they want to understand how long protection will last - and says it is possible the third jab will offer longer protection from the second dose, and immunity gained from natural infection could give "mini boosts" to protection.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam repeats that the recommendations offered today are for "this winter only".

He adds that the UK's vaccine experts will be asked to "keep on coming back to this question" until "the whole world, indeed, has settled into some kind of normality," but "now is not that time".

"In time, I suspect it will settle down," he adds.

Next question. Would you consider that anyone who does not take up the booster jab is not fully vaccinated and therefor their Covid pass becomes invalid?

Prof Van-Tam says there's no current consideration of certification for booster jabs.

He says, as a scientist, he would not consider that person to be "optimally protected" - but any Covid certification would be a matter for ministers to decide and that's a long way off.

"I'm kicking the can down the road on that," he says.

Hannah Geissler at the Daily Express has pointed out there were delays with the flu vaccine arriving at GP surgeries and asks if the booster programme could be affected by delays in the same way.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says he understands this is a very short delay of one to two weeks and was due to one supplier.

"I've absolutely nothing to tell you that gives me any concern about the supply of Covid-19 vaccines required for the booster programme in fact I believe it to be extremely healthy and absolutely no constraints on that."

Geissler asks if Van-Tam has a message for anyone who was yet to have a vaccine.

He says it is more important to have a first or a second dose than a booster.

He says, "the NHS has been very clear that the offer of vaccination is evergreen", people can still come forward and it's very important that they do.

The next question comes from a Sun journalist who asks about boosters for younger adults.

Prof Lim says that because those under 50 had their second dose quite recently, protection for around six months takes them quite far into 2022, so there is time to see how long that protection lasts.

"We don't want people to panic and think they have to have a booster dose straight away," he adds.

He is also asked about vaccines specifically for tackling variants of concern - and says the current jabs seem to be very good against them.

The panel is asked how long the booster vaccination will go on for, and where the jabs will be given out.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says he expects that if ministers in each of the UK nations give the plan the go-ahead, he expects third jabs to start "in a short number of days, not a short number of weeks".

He says they will be give out in a "combination" of mass vaccination centres and GP practices. He also says there will be "outreach" to people who receive care in their own homes.

He says there is an understanding the booster scheme should "proceed at good pace" - but says the NHS will be in a better position than him to advise on the duration.

The next question is on what impact the booster vaccines will have and if experts are following the progress of other countries to predict what will happen here.

Chairman of the JCVI, Prof Wei Shen Lim, says: "We do look at information coming from other countries."

He says Israel's data is very interesting but they predominantly used the Pfizer jab on a three and four-week schedule. This means they are longer from their second dose to now and there's likely a difference in the immunity peak when the second dose is timed at a different point. So the information is "not quite as relevant to the UK population as our own data".

Lim is also asked why we are not using AstraZeneca jabs as boosters.

He says the AZ is a "very good vaccine for its primary cause".

"For a range of reasons including simplicity and delivery of the programme we felt that overall there was a preference for mRNA vaccines for a booster dose," he says.

Chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Dr June Raine, says AZ is a "safe and very effective vaccine".

She says: "If the decision is that you would have it for your booster then... be reassured that it will be effective."

Next is a question about a "two-tier" booster programme. The experts are asked whether they're worried that people might not like it if they don't get the Pfizer jab, and instead get the second choice of a half dose of Moderna.

The choice between Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is more a question for the vaccination teams to organise themselves, says Prof Lim, rather than suggesting an individual should be trying to find out where they can get the Pfizer vaccine from.

Prof Van-Tam says he'd be perfectly content, as a 57-year-old, to get the Pfizer or the Moderna half-dose. "That's the truth," he says.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says the advice they've just announced is subject to ministerial decision.

If the government gives it the green light "it will be full speed ahead on this but in a purposeful way rather than a rushed way", he says.

"It is completely different to the situation back in December and January in the beginning of the vaccine era when we had very, very high levels of the disease and a completely unprotected population.

"It's different this time but still needs purposeful and steady steps towards the goal."

A question for Prof Lim from the BBC's Hugh Pym. He's asked about future booster plans.

Prof Lim says: "I don't think I can say very much about future booster programmes because we don't have the data.

"I think we need to keep our options open."

JCVI chairman Prof Wei Shen Lim outlines who will be first in line for the booster jab:

• Older adults living in residential homes
• Front-line healthcare and social care workers
• All adults ages 50 and over
• All those aged 16 to 49 with underlying health conditions
• Adult household contacts of immunosupressed individuals

Prof Wei Shen Lim, chairman of the advisory body the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), is now talking.

He says the aim of the vaccination programme was always to prevent hospitalisations and to prevent people from dying, and that remains the same with the booster jab.

He goes on to talk about the protection levels afforded by the first and second dose. He says the experts are having to project protection levels nine or 12 months on from the second dose.

Dr June Raine, chief executive of medicines regulator the MHRA, says following a review the Covid jab made by Moderna is safe and effective as a booster vaccine.

The Pfizer and AstraZenca jabs were authorised for use as boosters last week.

Dr Raine adds that the data shows giving a Covid booster at the same time as flu vaccines is safe.

UPDATE: 21:06 This entry was amended to clarify Dr Raine's language.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam says the vaccine taskforce has been working "incredibly hard behind the scenes to prepare extensively for both the supply and the potential deployment for boosters if that moment came".

"Today is the time to clarify that announcement, to clarify the advice that I can confirm that has gone to ministers and we await the response," he says.

England's deputy chief medical officer has started a Downing Street press briefing on the UK's Covid-19 booster jab programme.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam says the UK has had one of the most successful Covid-19 vaccination programmes in the world. He says latest estimates are that vaccines have averted 24 million cases and 112,000 deaths.

We are in an active phase of the pandemic and this winter could be "bumpy at times", he says.

Other respiratory viruses are "highly likely to make their return", so the "aim of the game, the mantra if you like, is to stay on top of things".