That's all for our live coverage on this story today. But before we go, a word from our political correspondent Helen Catt.

She says there have been an awful lot of allegations made in recent days, but the most striking is that Boris Johnson suggested that "bodies could pile high" during a discussion about lockdown.

She says Michael Gove put up "a robust defence" against criticism of this in the Commons.

And on Simon Case's questioning over the leak inquiry, she says it was "interesting" he said that given the amount of time had gone he didn't think it would be probable that they would actually find the source.

Labour's Rachel Hopkins says the public deserve to know what the prime minister said to Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward in a meeting before the failed European Super League was announced.

She asks if Michael Gove will commit to publishing all details of the meeting.

Gove says that his understanding was the conversation was about the more broad opening up of sporting events and said that the Boris Johnson and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden were "wholly opposed" to the super league.

SNP MP Hannah Bardell quotes figures saying 53% of people in Scotland think that the PM is corrupt.

She says the PM is leading a government that is "rotten to the core" and asks Michael Gove if he will ensure a public inquiry happens and recognise that people in Scotland have a right to decide their own future.

Gove says it's important to stress "that on each of the detailed questions raised I explained the position and it is not as the SNP would wish it to be".

Labour's Wes Streeting says the delay in locking down the country "led to a higher toll in both in terms of lives and livelihoods".

"What I don't think anyone expected was to read on the front of the Daily Mail today the quote that the prime minister said 'let the bodies pile high in their thousands"," he says.

He asks if Michael Gove if he has ever heard the prime minister say these words and that the prime minister has never said those words.

Gove says that he "never heard the prime minister say any such thing".

"We were all wrestling with an incredibly difficult decision, the decision to lockdown necessarily raises costs in other ways, as we are all aware, but the prime minister not only concluded at the end of discussion we had...that it was necessary to have a second lockdown but also sadly that it was to have a third lockdown as well," he says.

Conservative MP for Calder Valley Craig Whittaker says that while these matters should be transparent "one could only muse what other world leaders think of the UK prime minister having to pay for his own refurbishment".

"The ridiculous situation is why the prime minister should be paying anything at all personally, unlike other world leaders, when it is us the tax payer who demands that they live above the shop," he says.

Michael Gove says that Downing Street is a working building and there is some money which is allocated so that prime ministers who work in that building can perform their duties.

SNP MP Stephen Flynn also cites reports that the prime minister suggested "bodies could pile high" during a heated discussion about lockdown in Downing Street in the autumn.

He asks whether Michael Gove accepts that a "prime minister that does not put public health first is no prime minister at all?

Gove says he was in the meeting that afternoon.

He adds: "We are dealing with one of the most serious decisions this PM and any government has had to face.

"The prime minister made a decision in that meeting to trigger a second lockdown. He made a subsequent decision to trigger a third lockdown.

"This is a prime minister who was in hospital himself in intensive care.

"The idea that he would say any such thing I find incredible.

Referring to Mr Flynn's allegations Mr Gove adds: "By seeking to make the points in the way that he does diverts attention from the fact that so many people that have been affected by this pandemic rely on the government, the NHS and others to strain every sinew.

"These decisions are never easy. But the government and the PM made the decision to have a second and third lockdown and I think we can see the evidence of the leadership that he showed then.

"Not just in the courage that he showed but also in the success of the vaccination programme."

Green MP Caroline Lucas says concerns about the prime minister and the ministerial code are not "tittle tattle" - referring to comments by the International Trade Secretary Liz Truss at the weekend.

She says: "If, as seems to be the case with our archaic and dysfunctional rules, it is the prime minister himself who decides if the ministerial code has been broken, should we be trusting this one with marking his own homework or should the whole system be revised?"

Michael Gove says there is an opportunity with the appointment of a new independent adviser on ministerial interests to look again at how that role may be strengthened if deemed necessary.

Liberal Democrat Vera Hobhouse asks if the minister agrees that the best way forward would be an independent public inquiry into the government's handling of the pandemic in "order to get all the facts right".

Michael Gove agrees that we need a public inquiry but "it is important that we concentrate now on the successful vaccine rollout, on the roadmap and the lifting of restrictions".

"There will be a time for an independent public inquiry, and there will be lessons to be learnt, mistakes have been made," he says.

Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge also brings up the cost of refurbishing the prime minister's flat.

She cites differing statements within the last week about the upfront cost of the refurbishment, and asks: "How many more times will government ministers accept that their leader has misled the public, the press and Parliament before they declare him unfit for office?"

Michael Gove says he thinks that the specific allegation Dame Margaret makes against the PM is one she may wish to reflect on.

He says "the PM paid for the costs of renovation, declarations are properly made about political donations and the cabinet secretary pointed out that he is making sure that everything that was done was done in accordance with the rules".

Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Rachel Reeves is up next. She begins by quoting the PM's forward to the ministerial code, and says he is "corrupting the standard of life expected in high office".

She asks:

• When will the government publish the register of ministers' financial interests, who paid the invoices for the PM's flat refurbishment in the first place and when were those funds repaid, and when will the review by the cabinet secretary into this fiasco be complete?
• When will the review by the cabinet secretary into "this fiasco" be complete?
• When will the vacancy for the independent adviser on ministerial standards be filled, and will they be given the powers to trigger independent investigations?
• Will the minister apologise for the "stomach churning comments" that have come out today and urgently announce a public inquiry into the government's handling of the pandemic?

On the Downing Street refurbishment, Michael Gove says that previous prime ministers have used tax-payers' money to repair the flat.

He says: "This prime minister has spent his own money on refurbishing Downing Street."

On dealing with the pandemic, Gove says the government has initiated three lockdowns in response to medical and scientific advice.

Gove says it is right to say that we should appoint an independent adviser on ministerial interests as soon as possible.

He says the appointment is due within days, and the adviser will have the freedom to carry out their role "in exactly the way they should".

Replying to Ms Thewliss, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove says that the government "operating at a time when the pandemic was raging" did everything it could to make sure those on the front line got the equipment they needed.

He says that Ms Thewliss repeated the line on "bodies in the street" from a newspaper but did not mention that the prime minister did introduce a third lockdown.

"What she doesn't acknowledge is the determined effort by public servants into his government and others to deal with the pandemic and save lives, instead she tries to score political points," he says.

In the Commons main chamber the SNP's Alison Thewliss begins the urgent question by saying that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's alleged comments that he would rather see "bodies pile up in the streets" then introduce another lockdown are "despicable, cruel and callous" and says they are not befitting of the office of prime minister.

She says that government contracts have been handed to those with known political connections and says that "we need to know who has benefited and what their links are to ministers".

"Will ministers stop hiding behind commercial confidentiality and publish full details of these VIP contracts along with who recommended them?" she says, adding that it is "our money".

She says in absence of an independent adviser on standards "we can no longer trust them to investigate themselves" and calls for a full independent public inquiry.

Chris Mason
Political Correspondent

The bonnet is up and we're having a good old peer in.

The inner workings of government - how it works, rather than to what end - is most often the preserve of the insufferably nerdy.

I plead guilty.

But the last few days act as an illustration of why this stuff matters.

It is about what happens when those on the inside might assume no one is looking - and how good the rules are to regulate this behaviour.

This afternoon we've heard from two of Westminster's most senior figures as far as all this is concerned.

Two figures we rarely hear from in public: Simon Case, the country's top civil servant, and Darren Tierney, who is in charge of "Propriety and Ethics" at the Cabinet Office.

If Mr Case did the same amount of physical stonewalling as he has rhetorical stonewalling in the last few hours, he'd have biceps like Popeye's.

He's said - ad nauseam - that there's a limit to what he can say because of ongoing internal investigations.

But bit by bit, inch by inch, new nuggets are emerging about what on earth has been going on.

Just before we leave the committee hearing there have been more details on Mr Greensill's role in government.

Darren Tierney says that while hisn team have not been able to find any contract there is "some evidence that his appointment was signed off by the then-minister of the cabinet office and the then secretary of the cabinet office".

That would have been Francis Maude and Ian Watmore, he says.

David Jones says he finds it "rather alarming" that Simon Case and Tierney come before the committee "not knowing anything about the terms upon which Mr Greensill managed to be installed in Downing Street".

Case agrees that he finds it alarming as well.

The cabinet secretary says that this is the purpose of the inquiry led by Nigel Boardman.

We move now to the main chamber in the House of Commons. Michael Gove is now answering an urgent question on ministerial code from SNP MP Alison Thewliss in the House of Commons.

Now on to questions about Greensill. You can read more on that here.

Links between former Prime Minister David Cameron, the government and the finance company, Greensill Capital, have come under scrutiny from MPs and official bodies.

Mr Cameron has been criticised for lobbying ministers on behalf of the company, in which he had a commercial interest.

It's also been revealed he contacted Treasury officials and the Bank of Englandin an attempt to gain Greensill access to a Covid loan scheme.

David Jones asks: "Was Lex Greensill employed as a special adviser at Downing Street?"

Simon Case replies: "He wasn't employed as a special adviser."

Jones presses further on the nature of Greensill's role.

David Tierney replies that his exact status is "unclear".

He says: "He was appointed as an unpaid adviser on supply chain finance in January 2012. He did that until 2015.

"In 2013 he also became a crime representative which lasted until 2016 when he left the Cabinet Office.

"His status as an adviser it's unclear what basis that has, that's something that we've asked Nigel Boardman to specifically look into.

"We've been unable to find a contract. What we've found so far are an appointment letter and then subsequent reappointment letters which set out some conditions on his appointment... So far we've been unable to identify a contract."

Asked what there is to stop the prime minister being lobbied or blackmailed over a personal mobile phone, Simon Case says there are security packages "around all the communications that ministers have by whatever means".

"The level of security is increasing all the time," he says.

Government-issued IT is generally more secure, he adds, with highly-classified material "very secure".

Case says he thinks the idea of problems coming from ministers having personal phones is a "bit of a red herring".

"If it is government business then it is government business and needs to be declared and set out in the same way," he says. "It is the means of technology which is changing rather than the fundamentals of needing to record government procedure."

John McDonnell asks Darren Tierney about how proactive the Cabinet Office's propriety and ethics team are in scenarios such as the chancellor's texts being published.

Tierney says the team "does not just wait for things to come to us".

He adds: "The ministerial code is clear that it is for ministers to satisfy themselves that they are following the code, it's not for the Cabinet Secretary or I to police the code.

"That said we don't just sit there and let things go by, we will get involved in specific cases as necessary or at the advice of the PM.

McDonnell asks Darren Tierney if he provided advice on any of the examples given.

Tierney says: "I don't think I want to get into individual cases.

"I don't think I want to comment on any ongoing case work that the team are doing.

"We're engaged on a range of issues that are live at the moment."

SNP MP Ronnie Cowan asks about what the impact has been of the resignation of the prime minister's independent adviser on the ministerial code five months ago.

Sir Alex Allan quit after Boris Johnson backed Priti Patel over bullying claims and has not yet been replaced.

Simon Case says it is an important role but in his experience "it has not had a particularly significant impact" but said the prime minister was clear he needed to get a new adviser in post as soon as possible.

Cowan then asks if the "Greensill affair" would have been different with an adviser in post.

Case says the majority of issues to do with Greensill "have related to former government ministers" which would not have related to the independent adviser.

He adds that he hopes a replacement will be appointed in "days rather than weeks" but says not to hold him to that.

Tory MP David Jones asks about the cost of refurbishing the prime minister's flat, and whether it will be paid for through private donations.

Simon Case says any costs beyond the annual £30,000 allowance "are met by the prime minister privately".

On the use of a trust to pay for costs, Case says "there's work been going on on this for 12 months".

He says that Chequers and other buildings are supported by trusts but that no trust for Downing Street "currently exists".

He adds: "Work was begun last spring and Lord Brownlow agreed to be chair of a putative trust. There was work done to identify cross-party potential trustees.

"On the trust itself, when I became aware of this earlier this year... we've been looking at this question in much more detail of how a trust could work, building on the models from elsewhere.

"This is a genuinely complicated legal policy proprietary issue.

"A charitable trust can't cover private areas of Downing Street, so it's clear that that can't be done."

Asked whether he is aware of any private donations made to fund the refurbishment of the PM's flat, Case says: "The prime minister has asked me to conduct a review because I've not been involved directly in this."