Boris Johnson will appear before the Covid-19 Inquiry next Wednesday and Thursday, it has been confirmed.
The former prime minister will answer questions about the government’s decision-making during the pandemic.
Mr Johnson will be the only figure at the inquiry next week, and is scheduled to sit from 10.00am to 4.30pm on both days in a marathon evidence session.
It will offer the ex-PM a chance to answer criticism of his handling of the pandemic, including the incendiary claim that he was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going”.
The claim is one of many damaging recollections about Mr Johnson in the diaries of Sir Patrick Vallance, then the government’s chief scientific adviser.
Sir Patrick also said Mr Johnson believed that Covid was just “nature’s way of dealing with old people” and that he was “sure people are going into hospital with Covid who don’t need it”.
More to follow.