Vaccine passports could fuel the spread of COVID-19 by encouraging people to go to poorly ventilated pubs instead of large venues, the Government’s own impact assessment has reportedly warned.

The policy would also reduce turnover for the organisers of events required to use vaccine passports, and necessitate the hiring of thousands of new stewards which may be hard to deliver, the internal analysis by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is reported to state.

The Telegraph reported that a section of the impact assessment responds to whether the policy could have “any displacement effects to other types of venues not included for certification”.

The document reads: “There is potential displacement between live events venues and hospitality venues. A core concern in the sector is that certification could displace activity and business away from music venues to, say, pubs with music and late alcohol licences, etc. which could be counterintuitive and potentially counter-productive.”

It goes on to state: “Similarly, if certification displaces some fans from structured and well ventilated sports stadia, this could lead to them attending unstructured and poorly ventilated pubs instead, where they will have access to more alcohol than if there were in the stadia. Evidence from the Euros showed spikes in cases associated with pubs even when England were playing abroad.”