Mr Javid said it was not unusual for his private office to get a request from the prime minister’s office or No 10, but found many requests were not coming from Mr Johnson “once probed”.

“They might be anything from a request for information, request for detail, but also for policy change, or policy preference,” he added. “On probing further, they would be coming from Mr Cummings.”

Mr Javid said he would eventually see the prime minister and talk with him, both formally and informally, asking “I heard that you wanted this or you wanted that”, but Mr Johnson “would sometimes just not even know that that request had come in his name”.

He cites an example of when he was working on the budget in January and February 2020.

“I was getting a lot of requests relating to the budget, which on probing were coming directly from Mr Cummings and not the prime minister, and it’s not something I would have expected,” Mr Javid told the inquiry.

“Although that was the first time I’d served as chancellor, I had been in the Treasury as both economic secretary and the financial secretary under George Osborne when he was chancellor. So, I had a bit of a sense about how I would have expected things to work and this was very unusual.”