High Court gives councils go ahead to arrange Covid-19 and flu vaccines for children in care
Fiona Simpson
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Local authorities can arrange for children in their care to have the Covid-19 and flu vaccines despite parental objection, the High Court has ruled.
At a family court hearing, judge Mr Justice Poole said that councils could approve vaccinations for children who have a care order without court approval where there is a dispute with parents over the need for the child to be vaccinated.
Mr Justice Poole stipulated that councils could use their powers under section 33 of the Children Act 1989 so long as vaccines in question were being administered to children of the relevant age as part of a national programme approved by the UK Health Security Agency.
Section 33 of the Children Act 1989 gives authorities with a care order parental responsibility for the child and can determine the extent to which others, such as birth parents, can exercise their own personal responsibility, so long as doing so is necessary to safeguard and protect the child’s welfare.
Mr Justice Poole also noted that local authorities could approve a child’s vaccination if the child was either not of sufficient maturity to consent under the Gillick competency test or was Gillick competent and did consent and the local authority was satisfied that it was necessary to vaccinate the child to safeguard or protect their welfare.
The ruling was made in a case which involved a 12-year-old boy who has been under a care order since 2015.
The child, who will soon turn 13, asked his guardian and local authority to have the Covid-19 and winter flu vaccines. Both parties agreed this would be in the boy’s best interests along with his father.
However, the boy’s mother “strongly opposed” the idea, the court heard.
Mr Justice Poole rejected the mother’s application for the case to be adjourned so she could seek legal representation and dismissed material submitted as evidence, which he described as “anti-Covid-19 vaccination propaganda”.
He said: “The material is devoid of evidence or even rational argument and does not point to any peer-reviewed research evidence that raises any significant concern about the efficacy or safety of either vaccine.”
The boy told his guardian that he was frustrated by his mother’s opposition to him being vaccinated, which he said was not “smart”.
Mr Justice Poole concluded that while the local authority did not need his approval, he believed it was in the child’s best interests to have both vaccines given the “balance of risks of having and not having the vaccinations, and the boy’s own wishes and feelings”.
“In most cases, councils can arrange Covid-19 and flu virus vaccinations, even when there is parental objection, without having to apply to the court for approval,” he said.
However, he added that this did not give councils “carte blanche” to arrange any type of vaccination for looked-after children.
He said that based on previous case law, local authority powers under section 33 could not be invoked in relation to “serious or grave matters with profound or enduring consequences for the child”, which could not be ruled out in cases of vaccination.
Parents could invoke the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction or apply for an injunction under section eight of the Human Rights Act 1998 to prevent their child being vaccinated, in order to obtain a court ruling on the matter, he added.
