Latest updates: Labour leader says public Covid inquiry should be brought forward; PM rejects claim tens of thousands died needlessly

• Johnson and Hancock dismiss Cummings’ claims of chaos and lies
• Tory MPs turn on Dominic Cummings over Covid testimony
• Dominic Cummings lambasts Johnson in damning account
  
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3.41pm BST

At first minister’s questions in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon suggested that Boris Johnson’s failure to act swiftly at certain times in the pandemic had led to “loss of life”. As the Herald reports, Sturgeon said:

Sometimes I’m afraid, in the interests of health and human life, it is necessary for people in leadership positions like me to take very quick decisions because, as we know from bitter experience over this pandemic, it’s often the failure to take quick and firm decisions that leads to loss of life.

And anybody who’s in any doubt about that only had to listen to a fraction of what Dominic Cummings outlined about what he described as the chaotic response of the UK government at key moments of this pandemic.

3.23pm BST

New absence figures published by the Department for Education reveal that 60% of pupils in England were kept out of school for Covid-related reasons at some time last autumn.

The national data for the term that began when schools reopened in September shows that pupils missed 33 million days in the classroom because of Covid, through having to self-isolate or for shielding reasons. That sent the overall absence rate to nearly 12% for the term, compared with less than 5% in a normal term.

The government’s refusal to give schools any flexibility to finish in-school teaching early before Christmas, which was accompanied by threats of legal action, made matters even worse.

The prime minister’s former senior adviser spoke yesterday of the government’s shortcomings in the handling of this crisis and it is certainly the case that schools and colleges were badly let down by government leadership during the autumn term.