Keir Starmer says almost a year ago to the day Boris Johnson described his former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, as "in every respect acting responsibly, legally and with integrity".

He says this morning Cummings said senior ministers fell "disastrously short" of the standards the public had a right to expect and that lives were lost as a result.

He asks if the PM accepts this "central allegation" and that his inaction led to "needless deaths".

In response, the PM says "no", adding the matters will be reviewed at a public inquiry.

He adds that Starmer is "fixated as ever on the rear-view mirror".

Johnson says he thinks people are focused on moving forward and points out the vaccination programme is increasing "at such a rate that we can now ask everybody over 30 to come forward and get vaccinated".

Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer kicks off PMQs by saying: "This morning the prime minister's closest adviser said when the public needed us most the government failed - does the PM agree with that?"

Boris Johnson replies: "The handling of this pandemic has been one of the most difficult things this country has had to do for a very long time.

"None of the decisions have been easy, to go into a lockdown is a traumatic thing for a country, to deal with a pandemic on this scale has been appallingly difficult and we have at every step tried to minimise loss of life, to save lives, protect the NHS and we have followed the best scientific advice that we can."

Image source, PA Media

In a few moments, at noon, Boris Johnson will meet Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions.

It comes as Johnson's former chief aide, Dominic Cummings, continues to give evidence to MPs.

He has already said the government "failed" when the "public needed us most".

We'll bring you all of the coronavirus updates from PMQs when it begins.

We've been keeping across some dramatic developments as Dominic Cummings continues to give evidence to MPs on the government's handling of the pandemic - here are the headlines:

• Cummings says the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, should have been fired for "lying" about preparedness to deal with the virus and whether people were getting the treatment they need
• He says Hancock tried to blame PPE shortages on Simon Stevens, the head of NHS England, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak
• The prime minister was more concerned about the economic damage because he did not think the virus was "the big danger"
• Reports that Rishi Sunak put the brakes on a lockdown are "completely wrong"

• There was chaotic decision making inside No 10, like "an out of control movie"
• He says on Friday 13 March 2020 a senior official Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen Macnamara came to him and said: “I think this country is heading for a disaster. I think we are going to kill thousands of people”
• He says Covid planning meetings were derailed by dealings with Trump, and the PM's girlfriend wanting the No 10 press office to deal with media reports over the PM's dog
• Cummings says the PM regarded Covid as a "scare story" and wanted to be injected on TV.

Image source, PA Media

The Department for Education (DfE) had "no plan" to deal with the Covid pandemic, a group of MPs says.

A report by the Public Accounts Committee says the DfE struggled to react to events in a timely and effective way in England.

It says the failure to set standards for in-school and remote learning meant children "had very unequal experiences" during the pandemic.

There should be a thorough exercise to learn lessons from its early response, it suggests.

In response, the DfE says it acted swiftly and provided extensive support.

Read more here.

Image source, Caroline Wood

A woman employed by an NHS vaccination hub has hit out at the use of zero-hours contracts saying she has not done a shift in three months.

Caroline Wood, 29, who lives near Market Drayton, in Shropshire, says she has gone through hours of online training.

But of the very few shifts to have been offered on the specialist app, about 90% were 50 miles away in Ludlow, and usually last-minute, making it difficult to fit in with childcare, she says.

"I was told that there was 'a moment of quietness of needing staff' so I asked when it would get busier and told to keep checking the app," she says.

"And I'm still waiting for a shift. I just feel like I've been strung along really."

In a statement, the team leading the vaccination effort in Shropshire says: "We do acknowledge that there are some people who have experienced frustration by not being able to access as many shifts as they may have wanted, or have experienced short-notice cancellations when we were responding to variable vaccine supply."

You can read the full story here.

UK plan was based on the wrong viruspublished at 11:17 British Summer Time 26 May 2021

11:17 BST 26 May 2021

Nick Triggle
Health Correspondent

Dominic Cummings is right to suggest there was a misplaced confidence that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.

As it was unfolding, officials were publicly speaking about how strong our infectious disease surveillance and protection systems were.

That’s not surprising. Just a few months before, the UK had been ranked as the second best prepared country globally, external. That confidence, as he says, turned out to be “completely hollow”.

Some of that is because that plan was based on the wrong virus - flu not coronavirus.

It meant assumptions about the level of infectiousness and the risk of transmission before symptoms develop or among those who do not have symptoms was massively underestimated.

Nor was the right type of personal protective equipment available.

It is also clear from the official pandemic plan that there was only one plan - mitigating the spread of a pandemic virus rather than suppressing it.

It is why, in the early days, government ministers and scientists were talking about flattening the peak rather than trying to stop it.

The UK though was not alone in this. Most of Europe had a similar approach - unlike Asian countries the continent had not had to deal in any real sense with outbreaks of Sars and Mers.

Image source, PA Media

Lockdown restrictions have been eased across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but warnings are in place in eight areas worst-hit by the Indian Covid variant.

As we've been reporting, a change in guidance led to widespread confusion over the rules on travel and indoor socialising in Bolton, Blackburn, Kirklees, Bedford, Burnley, Leicester, Hounslow and North Tyneside.

You can check what the rules are in your area of the UK now - and in the weeks to come - by entering your postcode or council name into our look-up tool here.

Messaging must be clearer for successful shift from rules to guidancepublished at 10:59 British Summer Time 26 May 2021

10:59 BST 26 May 2021

Hugh Pym
BBC News Health Editor

It has become an accepted fact that public health messaging during the pandemic needs to be clear and concise. On that test government communications to people in the eight identified hotspot areas in England has failed in recent days.

People in most of those communities were simply unaware of tighter new guidelines posted on the government website on a Friday afternoon. When they emerged late on Monday evening there was understandable frustration with the suggestion people should not leave their council areas unless for essential reasons. Then it took nearly 24 hours for officials to clarify and amend the guidelines to simply minimising travel.

The row will blow over but it raises bigger long term questions. Ministers say they want to shift from legal restrictions to public guidance as the roadmap progresses in England - in other words not using the law to dictate behaviour but giving the public enough information to allow them to moderate their own behaviour.

This sounds fine in theory but recent events in the hotspot areas reveal the potential risks of this approach. Failure to provide clarity on what people can or cannot do at a time of uncertainty might potentially cause confusion and frustration - the opposite of what is intended.

Mark Savage
Music reporter, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

This summer's Download music festival will take place after all, despite having been called off in March.

The three-day event is being resurrected in June as a government test event to examine how Covid-19 transmission takes place in crowds.

The capacity will be significantly reduced - down from 111,000 to just 10,000 - but organisers say "moshing will be allowed".

It comes after a number of smaller-scale test events.

Just 15 cases of Covid-19 emerged among 58,000 people who took part in events ranging from the Brit Awards to the FA Cup final.

The Download pilot will take place in Donington Park, Derbyshire, from 18-20 June.

You can read more here..

Rachel Schraer
BBC Health Reporter

Covid has killed people from almost all ethnic minority groups at higher rates than it has white people, statistics published by the Office for National Statistics this morning confirm.

In the first wave of the pandemic, Black African men were four times more likely to die and Bangladeshi and Caribbean men three times more likely. Black and South Asian women died at between two and three times the rate of their white peers.

There was a shift by the second wave though – the gap between black and white populations narrowed as mortality rates for Black Caribbean and African people fell.

But the risk for Bangladeshi and Pakistani people increased - people with Bangladeshi backgrounds were between four and five times more likely to die than their white counterparts.

Most of these differences can be explained by geography, disadvantage, overcrowded or multigenerational housing, pre-existing health conditions and the jobs people do.

But these important factors cannot completely explain the difference.

Dominic Cummings has been telling MPs about the government's handling of the early stages of the pandemic for the past hour. Here are his key points so far:

• He began the session by saying he is sorry for the "mistakes that were made" for those who have lost loved ones during the pandemic
• Cummings says ministers, officials and advisers "fell disastrously short" of what the public expects during a crisis

• He apologises for the fact he did not "follow up" and "push" on his initial concerns about the virus in January
• Claims of government preparedness to deal with the pandemic were "completely hollow", he says
• There was "no sense of urgency" in government until the end of February because “lots of key people were literally skiing"
• Cummings says he did not advise the PM to attend Cabinet Office emergency meetings on the virus
• He says in February 2020, the PM regarded Covid as a “scare story” and said he would get Prof Chris Whitty to inject him with the virus on TV.

You can follow the evidence being given by the PM's former chief adviser in detail here.

Image source, EPA

Trial events held in Liverpool to test Covid-19 transmission did not cause any detectable spread of the virus, the city's health chief has said.

More than 13,000 people attended two nightclub events, a music festival and a business conference in April and May.

Eleven people later tested positive for coronavirus and Liverpool public health director Matt Ashton says the trials were "undoubtedly a success".

But less than half of all the attendees returned a PCR test.

People who went to the three-day business festival, did not need to socially distance or wear face coverings and were encouraged to take both a PCR and a lateral flow test on the day of the event and five days later.

Of those who tested positive afterwards, two people had been to the gig at Sefton Park and nine had attended the club events.

You can read more here.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

India has recorded 26 million Covid-19 cases - second only to the US. It is the new epicentre of the global pandemic.

The second wave in recent weeks has overwhelmed the healthcare system, leaving hospitals struggling to cope and critical drugs and oxygen in short supply.

Experts now believe that at a national level, the wave is waning.

The seven-day rolling average of new reported cases during the wave peaked at 392,000 and has been on a steady decline ever since for the past two weeks, according to Dr Rijo M John, a health economist.

But there's a catch.

Even if the second wave appears to be waning for India as a whole, it is by no means true for all states.

Continue reading here.

About three in four adults in the UK had antibodies to coronavirus by 9 May, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

Antibodies are evidence of vaccination or past infection.

A total of 76% of adults in England has antibodies, 77% in Wales, 75% in Northern Ireland while it is slightly lower in Scotland at 69%.

These figures are up from nearly 70% for England, roughly 64% for Northern Ireland and Wales and nearly 60% for Scotland in the week ending 25 April.

Morag Kinniburgh
BBC Scotland

A month after the biggest raft of Covid restrictions were eased, more than a quarter of Scotland's libraries are still closed.

Despite being allowed to open, 123 public libraries remain locked and some have not opened their doors in more than a year.

Many areas only offer reduced or remote services such as click and collect.

In Glasgow there have been local protests over fears several libraries won't ever reopen, although service provider Glasgow Life insists it's working on temporary and permanent solutions for these communities.

But the Scottish Library & Information Council says there is concern some services may never reopen.

Read the full story here.

Image source, Parliament TV

Dominic Cummings has started his session in front of MPs with an apology.

He says: "I think it's right that the public sector representatives are trying to figure out what happened and the lessons to be learnt.

"I hope you'll get all senior people involved in here to speak to you about it.

"The truth is senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has the right to expect of its government in a crisis like this.

"When the public needed us most the government failed.

"And I'd like to say to all the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry I am for the mistakes that were made and for my own mistakes."

We will bring you the main lines as Cummings gives his account of the handling of the pandemic and you can follow a blow-by-blow account from our colleagues at BBC Politics here.

An infectious disease expert who advises local authorities on health plans says confused messaging over coronavirus guidance in eight areas of England is leading to a fall in co-operation from the public.

Dr Bharat Pankhania says: "The public appreciate, want and almost demand that there are clear lines of communication and clear evidence in terms of what you're going to do when x, y and z happens."

He tells Radio 4's Today programme: "Therefore when people like us in local authorities start changing the game plan or do things without really explaining our actions, they stop eventually listening to us."

Asked if he, like Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, thinks the current advice is clear, Dr Pankhania says explaining what "minimise travel" means to residents at the ground level is "nigh on difficult and impossible".

Dominic Cummings has just sat down in front of MPs, ahead of a four hour grilling session on the government's handling of the pandemic.

The prime minister's former senior adviser - turned arch critic - is expected to make some controversial claims about decision-making in No 10.

We'll be bringing you the headlines, but for a blow-by-blow account, check out our politics live page.

Image source, PA Media

The prime minister's former senior adviser Dominic Cummings has arrived in Parliament, where he is due to give evidence to MPs in a few minutes' time.

He'll be quizzed about the government's handling of the pandemic, in a session expected to last about four hours.

We'll be bringing you the highlights right here, but for every twist and turn, follow our politics live page.