Policy minister Kit Malthouse has backtracked on No 10’s claims the prime minister would not personally intervene in ongoing Northern Ireland talks.

Malthouse told Sky News this morning: “He stays very close to his Northern Ireland secretary [Brandon Lewis] and I know that they talk a lot about the negotiations and if required I am sure he will.”

This comes after a No 10 spokesperson told this afternoon’s lobby briefing that Boris Johnson was not planning to personally intervene in the crunch talks.

An official spokesperson for the prime minister said yesterday afternoon: “No plans for that. As you know this is being led by Brandon Lewis,” they explained.

“We are not setting a specific timeline. I think certainly some of the issues that all of the parties campaigned on, not least some of these global pressures on cost of living, need urgent action,” they went on.

In Thursday’s vote, Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin became the largest party for the first time in its history, with the Democratic Unionist Party coming runners up.

Following talks yesterday, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he had reaffirmed the party’s plans to refuse to nominate a deputy first minister unless the region’s post-Brexit arrangement is scrapped.