The Government has been accused of 'political bias' when allocating funding from its £3.6bn Towns Fund by the public spending watchdog.

In a new report, the Public Accounts Committee said it was 'not convinced by the rationales' used for selecting certain towns and not others.

The report said the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) had not been open about the process it followed for selecting towns for the fund.

Committee chair Meg Hillier said: 'MHCLG must be open and transparent about the decisions it made to hand out those billions of taxpayers' money and what it expects to deliver.'

The committee also warned MHCLG was unclear on what it expected from the Towns Fund and how it will measure success.

An MHCLG spokeswoman said: 'We completely disagree with the committee's criticism of the Towns Fund selection process, which was comprehensive, robust and fair.

'The Towns Fund will help level up the country, creating jobs and building stronger and more resilient local economies.'