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Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Isabel

Harbman and I'm joined by James Versaith and Katie Balls. Well, Nicholas Sturgeon has let

slip that the Joint Committee on Vaccinations is likely

to approve vaccines for all over 16s in the UK. James, is this a surprise? Yeah, well, we know there's

been a controversy over the JCVI's decision. At a moment, JCPI have said that they only think that teenagers who are particularly

susceptible to getting seriously ill from COVID should be vaccinated or who live with an

immunosuppressed person.

But we know that there is growing concern about this with schools coming back.

Schools obviously come back sooner in Scotland than they do in the rest of the UK.

And we know the Scottish Government have risen to the JCPI saying,

are we sure that this is the right approach?

And from what Nicholas Sturgeon said today, announcing the further easing of COVID restrictions in Scotland, it seems that the JCVI will soon

recommend the vaccination of everyone over the age of 16. At the moment, they're vaccinating

everyone, those people who are within a few months of our 18th birthday. I think a concern among

all the various governments in the UK is that when schools return, cases will come up.

Because you have a large number of unvaccinated young people mixing together.

And I think if you do end up by vaccinating 16 plus, that obviously reduces that risk in certain settings.

It also helps.

One of the other reasons why this vaccinating of teenagers has become such an issue is that the Delta variant has led to

people thinking that what one might call the herd immunity threshold is higher than have been

previously fought. And that means that there is more benefit than you might have

...