Sacha Lord: Vaccine passports will be dropped

Sacha Lord has predicted vaccine passport for nightclubs are a ploy to get young people vaccinated, with no intention from the government of actually implementing them.

Lord, speaking on MCA’s The Conversation, said the lack of testing as part of the passport plan for nightclubs made no sense, and suggested the plan would be dropped at the last minute.

Lord said: “Call me cynical, but there is part of me that suspects, because it’s such a divisive hot potato, that this might be a ploy to for youngsters to get vaccinated, and at the final hurdle maybe they drop the idea. I just cannot see them implementing it if I’m being honest, I can’t see it getting through. I think there’s be many voices, too many sectors, arguing against it.

He added: “I can’t understand why we spent so much money, so much time on these test events. Why can’t we say, either prove you’ve been jabbed or you’ve had a negative lateral flow test - to me that makes absolute common sense. It is something the industry is geared up for and prepared for.”

Kate Nicholls admitted the announcement took UKHospitality by surprise.

“I was scratching my head on Monday as it happened, because the previous week there was a reference to encouraging businesses to adopt [Covid passes] voluntarily, saying that the government recognised that there were significant concerns around equality law, saying that they would work with the industry about how it could be used.

“We hadn’t even started that conversation before we had the prime minister announcing it was going to happen and it would be mandated from the end of September.

“There’s been no real further follow up since then to determine how we’re going to do this and what it means.

“It came completely out of the blue, and took the officials by surprise as well I think.”

She added: “People don’t think it’s particularly controversial for nightclubs, because the majority of the British population don’t go to them, it doesn’t affect them, they can’t see what’s wrong with it.

“But the minute it starts to broaden out, it’s quite concerning… it is such a major step away from the normal way we do things in this country, in terms of showing papers. I think this is a very worrying development that we need to keep an eye on.”