Covid: Nottingham pub bosses say vaccine passports 'not necessary'

Proposals for pub-goers to present vaccine passports when they go out for a drink are "unnecessary", a business expert has said.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested some way of allowing drinkers to show they had received a Covid jab could help keep people safe.

Jo Cox-Brown, from Nottingham-based consultancy Night Time Economy, said passports were "unworkable".

Pub landlords also had reservations about the idea.

Under current plans beer gardens and outdoor eating areas in England are set to reopen from 12 April, with indoor service set to start from 17 May.

Mr Johnson said any plans for passports would not apply before those dates and could only be implemented after everyone has been offered a vaccine, with the proposals involving "ethical problems that need to be addressed".

Ms Cox-Brown said the "wholly disproportionate" effort in making landlords or restaurant owners ask for vaccine identification before customers enter is "really unworkable".

"Hospitality is so well used to managing the safety of its customers, and we saw when we opened last time that hospitality was only responsible for 3-5% of infections, so they obviously were managing it very well and very safely," she said.

"I think if you're not being asked for a passport when you enter a supermarket, where people seem to swarm in together, or to go to a school or to enter your workplace, then it seems really disproportionate to expect it from a restaurant or a bar."

Ben Rose, landlord of The Angel and The Golden Fleece in Nottingham, said he was not convinced by the proposals.

"I think it is very muddy," he said.

"I do understand where [Boris Johnson] is coming from, but from a landlord's perspective it's going to put a lot of pressure on us."

Mr Rose said it would be "concerning" if landlords had to "police" who entered their premises, and pointed to "a lot of anomalies" in the way Test and Trace was implemented in pubs last year.

He also said the hospitality industry stuck well to one-way systems, hand sanitisers and other anti-Covid regulations, which had not happened in other businesses.

"Would you have to have a vaccination passport to go into shops, because they are just rammed with people?" he said.

"I just find it a little bit of a tough one to get my head around sometimes."