Boris Johnson denies bias over towns funding scheme

Boris Johnson has denied that the government has been biased in the allocation of funds to struggling towns.

Fewer than a fifth of the constituencies which will benefit from a billion pounds announced in yesterday’s Budget have a Labour MP.

Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said that looked like “pork barrel politics”.

Labour has also questioned why the Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s own seat of Richmond in Yorkshire is in line to benefit from a separate Levelling Up fund despite being one of the least deprived areas of the country.