Compulsory vaccinations for school children being seriously considered, says Matt Hancock

Matt Hancock has said there is a “very strong argument” for making it compulsory for school children to be vaccinated.

The health secretary said he had received legal advice on the issue in recent days and was looking at it after becoming concerned about falling vaccination rates.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester hosted by HuffPostUK, Mr Hancock said the UK “needs a massive drive to get the vaccination rates back up”.

He said he believes there is a “very strong argument” for moving to compulsory vaccinations, adding that he thinks “the public would back us”.

“I have received advice inside Government this week on how we might go about it and I’m looking very seriously at that,” he said.

“I think there is a very strong argument for moving to compulsory vaccination. And I think that the public would back us.

“I am very worried about falling rates of vaccinations, especially measles. For measles the falling vaccination rates are a serious problem. And it’s unbelievable, I think, that Britain has lost its measles-free status, and it should be a real wake-up call.

“The worst thing is that if you don’t vaccinate your child and you can, then the person you are putting at risk is not only your own child, but it’s also the child who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons – maybe they have got cancer so their immune system is too weak, and they are losing what’s called ‘the herd immunity’ that you get from when over 95% of people are vaccinated.”

Mr Hancock also said social media companies had “a lot to answer for” for spreading anti-vaccine views.

The health secretary also used the fringe event to launch a strong defence of the sugar tax.

He said: “I am not proposing that we ban sugary drinks. But we have got to tax something.

“So, taxing things that are actively bad for you and drive up my costs in the NHS – let’s tax those things instead of taxing good things like the amount of work that people do through income tax.”

Additional reporting by Press Association.