Vaccination Certificates Create Risk of Two-Tier Society, Indirect Discrimination – UK Human Right Commission

Covid-status certificates being considered by ministers to help open up society could amount to unlawful indirect discrimination, the government's independent equalities watchdog has advised.

As ministers decide whether the documents should be introduced as passports to certain events later this year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has told the Cabinet Office they risk creating a "two-tier society".

The watchdog also said employers should not be allowed to hire workers on a "no jab, no job" policy until all young people had been offered a vaccine, and that plans to make them mandatory for care workers helping older people may not be lawful

According to a submission seen by the Guardian, the EHRC said Covid-status certificates could be a "proportionate" way of easing restrictions, given the toll lockdown has taken on people's wellbeing and livelihoods.

But it said they risked further excluding groups among whom vaccine take-up is lower - including migrants, those from minority ethnic backgrounds and poorer socio-economic groups - from access to essential services and employment.

"There is a risk of unlawful discrimination if decisions taken in this process disadvantage people with protected characteristics who have not received, or are not able to receive, the vaccine, unless they can be shown to be justified," it said. "Any mandatory requirement for vaccination or the implementation of Covid-status certification may amount to indirect discrimination, unless the requirement can be objectively justified."

The warnings emerged as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, gave the clearest indication yet that care workers would be required to have a vaccination or be refused deployment in care homes.

Launching a...