Boris Johnson: Day 3 of the week live updates

Boris Johnson's critics believe that if they prove he lied to the House of Commons, they will have the evidence to force him out because ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister and Dominic Cummings is trying to lever the PM out on these grounds.

Cummings had tried before, and last year he told MPs in evidence to a committee that he would rather see the bodies pile high than order a third lockdown, a claim Johnson had categorically denied from the dispatch box. The parliamentary authorities and even the committee taking evidence from Cummings last year showed no interest in following up Cummings evidence on this point, and adjudicating on who was telling the truth, and the allegation was left hanging in mid air.

Cummings returned yesterday with new evidence of Johnson lying, which will be much harder to ignore because partygate has become such a toxic controversy.

Johnson said last week in his statement to MPs that when he attended the party in the No 10 garden on May 20, 2020, when lockdown restrictions were in force, he believed that this was a work event and that Johnson was not warned in advance that it would be a mistake for the party to go ahead.

There have also been claims from the government that he did not know it was happening in advance. No 10 says he did not see the email from his principal private secretary Martin Reynolds inviting staff to the party, although it wouldn't be unusual for a PM not to read an email about a diary matter his staff are there to read in advance. On the Today programme this morning, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy PM, was asked to confirm that Johnson had denied knowing about it the party.

Cummings evidence, if true, blows the Johnson account to pieces. In his new post on his Substack blog, he states that he personally told Johnson on the day of the party that holding it was a mistake. Johnson waved aside the concerns that Cummings says. He says he and another senior official told Reynolds on the day that holding the party would be against the rules. Cummings says Reynolds disagreed, but he said he would discuss it with the PM. Cummings says Reynolds has checked with the PM.

Raab gave interviews this morning. He told Times Radio that Cummings claims were nonsense.

Raab refused to discuss the details of Cummings claims, and he said these were matters for the investigation by Sue Gray, the civil servant who is investigating all the partygate claims.

In normal circumstances, Raab admitted that lying to parliament would be a resignation matter. After stressing that he did not want to get into hypotheticals, he told the Today programme:

Here is the agenda for the day.

10 am : Richard Meddings, the UK's proposed candidate for chair of NHS England, gives evidence to the Commons health committee.

11.15 am: Greg Hands, the energy minister, and Christopher Pincher, the housing minister, give evidence to the Commons business committee on energy policy.

11.30 am: Health secretary Sajid Javid takes questions in the Commons.

11.30 am: Kwasi Kwarteng, business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Scottish affairs committee about Storm Arwen.

12.15 pm: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, holds a press conference on Covid.

1.30 pm: Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, takes questions in the Senedd.

2 pm : Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister, makes a statement on Covid in the Scottish parliament.

There will be some UK Covid coverage here, but for more coronavirus coverage, read our global live blog. I try to monitor the comments below the line BTL but it is impossible to read all of them. If you have a direct question, include Andrew somewhere and I'm more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line ATL, although I can't promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to get my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.