Gordon Brown came under fire on Wednesday from a Labour-dominated Commons inquiry in an indictment of the government's poor financial planning for the 2012 London Olympics.

The £2bn contingency fund the chancellor is insisting on adding to the Olympics budget amounts to "almost an open cheque" for developers, warns the Commons culture and media committee in a critical report. The Treasury "could and should" have flagged up its concerns about the allegedly inadequate provisions for cost overruns before London's winning bid was submitted, say the MPs.