Heather Wheeler, the Conservative Member of Parliament for South Derbyshire who is a junior minister in the Cabinet Office, reportedly made the degrading comment about English cities Birmingham and Blackpool at an event in London last week.

Wheeler has now issued an apology on social media, claiming that she had made an "inappropriate remark that does not reflect my actual view".

Her apology came after being criticised by Labour politicians and Conservative West Midlands Mayor Andy Street.

"It is a very stupid thing to have said, frankly and I am sure [she] regrets it very, very deeply," Street told the BBC.

"More students are coming here, more Londoners are coming to live here and businesses are investing, so the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary."

Street said that the 1.4 million people who had bought tickets for the upcoming Commonwealth Games were "going to see what a great place [Birmingham] is" and added: "She is coming to every event here and she is going to be wearing a fan of Birmingham badge."

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner was among those to slam Wheeler for her comment on social media.

"The mask has slipped," Rayner wrote in a post on Twitter.

"This Minister has blurted out what Boris Johnson’s Conservatives really think about our communities behind closed doors.

"The disrespect is off the scale.

"Heather Wheeler has put her utter contempt for voters on show."

Fellow Labour MP Lisa Nandy, shadow secretary of state of levelling up, housing and communities, added: "They tell us they’re levelling up the country but this is what they truly think.

"They can’t even tell the difference between 'Blackpool or Birmingham or somewhere godawful.'"

Birmingham is set to become the first English city since Manchester in 2002 to host the Commonwealth Games.

The Games are due to run from July 28 to August 8.