Covid passports 'inevitable' says Shropshire attraction boss
The chairman of a major county visitor attraction says he welcomes the idea of Covid passports – and thinks they are an inevitability.
Clive Knowles, chairman and founder of the British Ironwork Centre on the outskirts of Oswestry, is busy preparing the site to reopen next week.
Mr Knowles, said that he would be in favour of the introduction of 'Covid passports', a controversial plan the government has said is an option for the future.
During a Downing Street press conference on Monday evening the Prime Minister said that they would be looking at a "number of signals that you can give that you are not contagious", including having previously had Covid-19, vaccination status and negative test results.
Mr Knowles said: "We do prefer the idea of people having evidence of the vaccination and that they are taking it all very seriously.
"I think it is inevitable anyway, I think it is something the airlines will do and eventually everyone will adopt.
"I think it is great for staff and business owners that people have their vaccinations and they are very clear in ensuring they are not part of transmitting it on. I think it is something the world will generally adopt."
Ministers have ruled out bringing in certification for either the April 12 or May 17 stages of the road map, but the documents, known as Covid certification – either in paper form or on an NHS app – could be introduced later this year.
Speaking from Downing Street Mr Johnson suggested that vaccination passports for overseas travel were "going to be a fact of life, probably" because a lot of countries were looking at the possibility.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said Labour was "very sceptical" and wanted more details about how they would work.
He said: "I'm not going to support a policy that, here in my Leicester constituency, if someone wants to go into Next or H&M, they have to produce a vaccination certificate on their phone, on an app.
"I think that's discriminatory."
Senior Tory Mark Harper, chairman of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, warned Covid status certification "will lead to a two-tier Britain".
