Stuart Rose urges govt to pay young people £250 to get vaccinated

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Lord Stuart Rose, who used to be Marks & Spencer’s executive chairman, appeared on Channel 4 News and revealed his solution to increase vaccine uptake among the young demographic. The Conservative peer urged the Government to consider introducing cash incentives to raise the youth uptake and suggested the plan would not be as expensive as some may think. He said paying £250 would be “negligible” to the Government as figures show 34 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds in England – about three million people – have not been vaccinated at all. 

Appearing on Channel 4 News, journalist Cathy Newman spoke with Lord Rose about the handling of the pandemic with the peer blasting the Government for their poor communication. 

Ms Newman wondered if Lord Rose could dive into his selling and retail experience to see if he could provide an answer to the slump in youth vaccines. 

He told the programme: “I’d give them £250, put a jab in one hand and cheque in the other.”

Lord Rose was asked whether he believed it would make a difference and added: “I think if I was a young student and thinking about shall I or shan’t I and somebody else offered me £250 to go and do something.

“The cost of the Government is negligible, we spent billions and billions and billions of pounds on this Covid crisis.”

It is estimated around £37billion was spent on the NHS Test and Trace system and on several private contractors to help in the pandemic. 

The BBC reports around three million people between 18-29 have not received a jab meaning roughly £750million would be spent on Lord Rose’s proposal. 

The peer was then asked his thoughts on how the Government has handled the pandemic so far and whether they could improve in anyway. 

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He explained: “Well I think the real serious problem is and I don’t pretend that I’d be any better at it other than the fact that I do come from an industry which communicates pretty well.

“The government’s communication has been pretty inept, particularly in the last two or three weeks.

“We’re either free or not free, we’re now either actually legally obliged to do something and now we’re not legally obliged but to put more pressure on companies to make the decision – So I think people are totally confused.

“If you lock me in a room today and told me my life depended on it to write down to every rule and regulation about what I’m supposed to do and what not supposed to do I could not do it.”

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The Department of Health warn there has been a surge in deaths with 131 recorded on Tuesday – the highest percentage increase since March. 

However, cases and hospitalisations continue to fall as the vaccine programme reaches its final stretch. 

Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, has warned “rates are still high and the pandemic is not over yet”.

She added: “Today we have recorded the highest number of deaths since March.

“This is in part due to the high number of cases recorded in recent weeks. We know deaths follow when there are a high number of cases and data today highlights we are still in the third wave.

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