THE MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale has said it is “out of order” for anti-vaccination campaigners to target schools.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) published a survey which said that 79% of schools have been had been targeted by anti-vaccine demonstrations.
A demonstration took place at Furness Academy in September, where a small group of protesters gathered to outside the school Barrow to hand out leaflets to parents and pupils.
It was reported that one protester told children the vaccine would ‘kill you’.
Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron described the actions as 'out of order'.
Tim said: “It’s completely out of order for anti-vaccine protestors to be targeting schools and intimidating pupils, teachers and parents.
“We’ve seen protestors at school gates giving out letters pretending to be from the NHS which are full of lies and designed to stop people taking the vaccine – utterly shameful when we know how important the vaccines are to saving lives.
“I would seriously ask those who are spreading this misinformation to children and young people to look themselves in the mirror and stop doing this.”
Furness Academy Headmaster Simon Laheney said: “It was an isolated incident and I’m glad to say we haven’t had any comeback from it since.
“Some people came to the school and were handing out leaflets to people in the evening.
“This was before we even started with the vaccine.
“We have staff on duty at all times. Things like this could happen anywhere so it’s tricky to plan for them.”
The harrassment of pupils was condemned by Barrow MP Simon Fell.
He said: "The freedom to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, but it is completely unacceptable for children, teachers, or parents to be intimidated and harassed outside their schools by protesters peddling misinformation and dangerous lies about the life-saving vaccine programme.
"I think the Education and Home Secretary are right to say that these protests have to come to an end."
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer described these actions as 'sickening'.
Sir Keir said: “It is sickening that anti-vax protesters are spreading dangerous misinformation to children in protests outside of schools.
“Labour believes the law around public spaces protection orders (PSPOs) urgently needs to be updated so that local authorities can rapidly create exclusion zones for anti-vax protests outside of schools.”
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