The drinks Cabinet

Ministers are spending a record £36,000 every day wining and dining guests, new figures reveal today.

The Government's hospitality bill has almost doubled since Labour came to power seven years ago.

And just one ministry, defence, is responsible for almost two thirds of the entertainment budget, spending almost £8 million in the 12 months for which figures are available.

The Whitehall "drinks" bill has soared from £7,193,352 in 1997 to £13,313,234 in the year to April 2004.

Big spenders using taxpayers' cash to entertain include Chancellor Gordon Brown, Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett and Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

At the Treasury, the normally frugal Mr Brown has overseen a doubling of the entertainment budget since 1997, from ?59,000 to ?137,000. And at the Department for Trade and Industry costs have jumped from ?704,000 to more than ?1.1million.

At the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs the bill has risen from £70,104 in 1997, when it was the Ministry for Farming and Fisheries, to £428,000 in the last financial year. The Department for Work and Pensions spending has risen from £147,000 to £400,000.

All this is dwarfed by the Ministry of Defence bill, up from £5,145,000 to £7,990,000 under Geoff Hoon.

By contrast Alistair Darling, the Transport and Scottish Secretary, emerges as the most parsimonious member of the Cabinet. Entertainment costs at the Department of Transport have dropped from £31,000 to £15,000, and at the Scotland Office they have fallen from more than £60,000 to £25,969. Other departments to see a drop in their hospitality bills are Health and Education.

The overall figure for all Whitehall departments excludes the Foreign Office bill, though the total expenditure on entertainments here and abroad was ?8,135,315 in 2003 to 2004.

Liberal Democrat MP David Laws, who obtained the figures after tabling a series of parliamentary questions, said: "For a government which promised to deliver on ' people's priorities', it's deeply disturbing to see how much extra money is going on entertainment. At a time when Gordon Brown is looking for savings to fund his spending round this is an obvious area where he should be wielding the axe."

Mr Laws, the Lib-Dems' shadow chief secretary to the Treasury said: "It's of particular concern to see that while some departments have managed to be more frugal, others have experienced a massive rise in spending - including the Chancellor's own department."

The Public and Commercial Services Union said the lavish hospitality budgets sat poorly alongside Mr Brown's plans to axe up to 80,000 civil service posts in Whitehall.