Files detailing discussions between health company Randox, ex-MP Owen Paterson and ministers show that the Government is “simply unfit for office”, Labour has said.

Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds also pressed the Government to release the full minutes of a “crucial meeting” on April 9 2020, after which Randox went on to win Government Covid testing contracts worth nearly £600 million.

Health minister Maggie Throup said a note of the 2020 meeting published last week was the equivalent of “an official record of a meeting”.

The Government also faced scrutiny over suggestions in the published files that former health secretary Matt Hancock and former Conservative North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson discussed Randox in one of the division lobbies either side of the Commons where MPs cast votes.

Asking an urgent question following the release of the documents, Ms Dodds said: “They (the files) paint a picture of a Conservative Government that is simply unfit for office. That the Conservative Government played fast and loose with public money. It handed Randox a £133 million contract, without competition.”

On the meeting between then-health minister Lord Bethell, Mr Paterson and Randox on April 9 2020, the Labour Party chairwoman said: “There are still no minutes of that crucial meeting on April 9. Just a rough draft email, sent seven months later. Two years on, the department can’t even explain who was there.

“Health ministers held, we now know, another four meetings that were never declared in the register. So how many more secret meetings were there?”

The Labour chairwoman added: “The file showed that this former MP, a paid advocate for Randox, was arranging meetings with the health secretary in the division lobby. A place which only MPs can have access and where it is impossible for civil servants to join them.”

Ms Throup made “no apology” for the Government’s actions to acquire Covid testing equipment, and suggested the note released in the Randox files about the meeting on April 9 is the equivalent of “an official record of a meeting”.

She said: “When the department received a Freedom of Information request for the minutes of this meeting, the private secretary found the minutes and shared it. And for clarity, notes and minutes mean an official record of a meeting. The words mean the same from an official meeting’s record point of view.”

Ms Throup also stressed there are “robust rules and processes” in place to assure that all contracts are awarded in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines.