Tory leadership race: When will final two candidates be revealed?

Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt appear to be leading the field but race is growing tighter

The next round of voting in the Conservative Party leadership contest takes place on Wednesday, with the race to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister heating up.

Former chancellor Rishi Sunak appears to be the clear frontrunner after securing 118 votes, just shy of the number effectively guaranteeing him entry to the final phase.

He has picked up the support of Jeremy Hunt, Sir Gavin Williamson, Oliver Dowden, Dominic Raab, Grant Shapps and Steve Barclay along the way.

Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt are battling to win over Kemi Badenoch's supporters after she was knocked out in the fourth round of the contest.

The foreign secretary received a surge in support in the penultimate ballot, putting her within touching distance of Ms Mordaunt as the right of the party appears to be coalescing around her.

Ms Truss picked up 15 votes to command the support of 86 Tory MPs on Tuesday, after 31 votes were freed up by the elimination of Tom Tugendhat a day earlier.

But Ms Mordaunt still appears to be second favourite after increasing her share by 10 to sit on 92.

Ms Badenoch came last in the ballot on 59 votes, with Ms Truss believed to be more likely to pick up a significant number of those votes than Ms Mordaunt.

Mr Sunak’s prospects in the members’ ballot is looking far gloomier, with a YouGov poll of 725 Tory activists finding he would be comprehensively beaten by either Ms Truss or Ms Mordaunt.

The fifth and final round of voting opens at 1pm on Wednesday and will run until 3pm.

We can then expect to see the results published at around 4pm.