Acknowledged the urgency but stated that vaccinations are carried out based on national guidelines. Personnel receive vaccines according to their age cohort, with exceptions made where local medical facilities allow for earlier vaccination.

Clarified that vaccines are administered based on national guidelines and age cohorts, with exceptions made for those deployed where local facilities allow earlier vaccination. Stated 98.6% of personnel have received their first dose, and 56% the second dose. Also addressed recent activities involving HMS Defender in the Black Sea.

Confirmed 95% of overseas-deployed personnel have received their first dose. Provided context on how the national programme's prioritization by age cohort has affected overseas deployments.

First, I would like to challenge the hon. Lady: I am not sure that correcting the assertion that there had been 80 positive cases with the fact that there had been 24 shows pride in that fact; it is just correcting the record in response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) in the first place. It is certainly the case that everybody who is deploying on operations now has been jabbed. That goes without saying given that we are now at the stage where everybody under the age of 40 has had their jab. It is not necessarily the case that everybody has had two jabs and not necessarily possible to accelerate that. The Royal Anglian battlegroup, for example, who have just deployed to Mali, have had their first jab. They will receive their second when the appropriate period of time has passed between jabs. Otherwise there is no point in jabbing them because the effectiveness of the vaccination will not be as high as it should be. However, we have certainly reached a point in the vaccination programme where everybody who is being deployed has been vaccinated.

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. It is not in our gift to order people to take a medication should they not wish to do so. Prior to deployments where we have been seeking to fully vaccinate beforehand, we have been having a conversation with those who have expressed concern to try to reassure them that the vaccine is entirely safe and that it is in their interest to take it. I can absolutely assure him that anybody who needs to be removed from an operational deployment because of their unwillingness to take a vaccine is not in any way career fouled as a consequence.

I certainly can. The second doses will all be deployed so that everybody overseas gets them as soon after their first dose as is medically advisable. Achieving that is not without challenge: getting these doses forward can require quite a logistical effort given some of the locations in which our people serve, but that has gone well and it is testament to military planners in the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Medical Services that that is the case.

We do not recognise the reports in the press about lack of access to testing equipment; I have been assured that testing equipment was available in all theatres. The ability to self-isolate is slightly more challenging in some military settings than in others; in submarines, for example, it is quite hard, but in many other deployments it is perfectly possible. We do our best to make such provision available, but obviously field conditions are at times a slightly austere environment, in which case that is not always possible.

My hon. Friend is right of course that people in our armed forces do accept a heightened risk. However, the risk that they offer to accept is ordinarily one that is posed by the enemy, and we in the MOD certainly do not assume that they are willing and able to accept a higher risk of infection from a virus. The judgment that was made was not around their acceptance of risk; it was made around the fact that military personnel are invariably young, fit and healthy, so when decisions were made about the prioritisation of vaccine it felt correct—and I stand by this now—to prioritise the vaccination of those who were more elderly and vulnerable at home rather than those who were younger, fitter and healthier and serving overseas.

I think I have answered the question already. We made the case for priority vaccination for those whom we felt needed to be vaccinated because it was unrealistic to vaccinate them other than as a priority right at the start of vaccination programmes—the nuclear deterrent quick reaction alert aircrew for example. Thereafter it was perfectly possible to safely vaccinate members of the armed forces in line with their age cohort, and the correct judgment was made in prioritising those who were more elderly and vulnerable at home.

I cannot do that, because we have made sure that our forces have received their first jabs in line with or ahead of their contemporaries in the general population. They will receive their second doses at the appropriate time thereafter—once deployed, in the case of those recently deployed to Mali. I think that is an appropriate way of doing this. These are young, fit and healthy people, and they will get both their first and second doses well ahead of their contemporaries at home.

First, there is an important point of fact: the battle group to which the right hon. Gentleman refers deployed in December 2020, before any vaccine had been certified. It would have been impossible to have vaccinated the Light Dragoons battle group before they were even deployed.

I echo the hon. Member’s thanks to all those military personnel who have been involved not just in the vaccine taskforce, but in all other parts of the response to the covid pandemic. Decisions such as this are initially decisions for policy makers in Government. I think that I have been very clear about our willingness as a ministerial team to own the decision; I think it was the right one. There were no conversations beyond that with any of the agencies or organisations mentioned.

I can reassure my hon. Friend that 96% of people currently serving on Op Shader are vaccinated and 31% have had their second dose. They will receive their second doses as soon as it is medically advisable for them to do so. However, I cannot assure him that it is policy to vaccinate the troops with whom they are partnering.

I will write to the hon. Gentleman.

I will write to the hon. Gentleman if this is incorrect, but I believe that we are working on around a four-week gap.

I certainly join my hon. Friend in celebrating all who serve and have served in our nation’s armed forces. We are vaccinating the vast majority of the armed forces community, with the exception of those involved in nuclear deterrence and other niche tasks, in line with wider priorities. Delivery has taken place such that the vast majority of our armed forces are being vaccinated ahead of their contemporaries in the general population.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point; as someone who served overseas on operations, I knew I was okay until I was not, but for those left behind—the families of our serving personnel—there is a daily worry about their safety and the threats they are facing. Many colleagues in the House have written to me on behalf of parents and loved ones of people deploying to seek reassurance about the vaccination programme, and we have made sure that this has been given to them.