A minister has accused the Labour Party of "throwing mud" after it published the results of an investigation which showed almost £150million was spent on government credit cards in the space of a year. 

Richard Holden, the transport minister, claimed Labour is "desperate" to attack the Government because it does not have any policies to talk about. 

He told Times Radio: "This isn’t analysis and data, first of all, put out by the Labour Party. Actually since 2012 we have fully transparently declared all spending on these government procurement cards and there is one reason for that and that is in the last year of the last Labour government almost £1billion was spent on these government procurement cards. 

"So compare 2009 with last year and you are seeing an 85 per cent reduction in spending on government procurement cards. I can understand why Labour would be desperate to try and throw mud in this area at the moment because they call themselves a government in waiting but we are all waiting to see what policies they actually come up with."

The data published by Labour showed ministers and officials racked up almost £150 million on the cards in just one year. Public money was spent on a four-star trip to the Caribbean for prison staff and sparkling wine and free branded merchandise for civil servants. 

Labour claimed it showed the Conservatives were acting as though it was "the last days of Rome".

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