TORY ministers are using taxpayers’ money to “live the high life” in five-star hotels while on overseas trips, Labour charged today.

The party’s analysis of government spending shows that in July 2021, the Treasury spent £3,217 on rooms at Venice’s five-star Hotel Danieli for then chancellor Rishi Sunak and other officials attending a G20 meeting. 

Tory Party chairman Greg Hands stayed in a £318-a-night five-star hotel in Germany when he was energy minister in July 2022, while travel and hotel costs for Alok Sharma’s 66 trips as president of the Cop26 climate summit left taxpayers to foot a whopping £220,817 bill. 

The details were uncovered through analysis of official figures and a string of parliamentary questions on the use of government procurement cards (GPCs), with Labour promising to publish a dossier on their use on Monday.

Deputy party leader Angela Rayner said: “As Conservative ministers once again reach into the pockets of taxpayers to dine out on five-star luxury lifestyles, families up and down the country are sick with anxiety about whether their pay cheque will cover the weekly shop.

“Britain is facing the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades and [Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“Far from actually governing, Conservative ministers are living the high life and treating taxpayers like a cash machine.”

A Labour government would “get tough on waste, with an office of value for money upholding transparency and high standards for all public spending, including on government procurement cards,” she claimed. 

While acknowledging that overseas travel is an essential part of many ministers’ jobs, the party insisted that the “most cost-effective option should be chosen.”

The analysis also uncovered evidence of large sums being spent on domestic travel.

Last May, then home secretary Priti Patel and an aide spent a total of £823 on just two return train tickets to Stoke-on-Trent to attend “urgent ministerial meetings,” despite it being a scheduled Cabinet away day. 

A senior Tory source said that Labour had “awkwardly forgotten” that GPCs had been introduced in 1997, when Tony Blair was prime minister.

“By 2010, Labour was spending almost £1 billion of taxpayers’ money on everything from dinners at Mr Chu’s Chinese restaurant to luxury five-star hotels,” the source said.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the source claimed that the Tories “swiftly stopped their absurd profligacy by cutting the number of cards and introducing a requirement for spending to be publicly declared.”