The government’s green credentials are in the firing line – and not for the first time. In office, Keir Starmer has sparked headlines with seemingly endless plane trips abroad. And now Mr S has done some digging to find out what ministerial cars are being used to ferry our leaders around. A Freedom of Information request on the Government Car Service reveals that the Department for Transport invoiced more than £1.3 million to government departments making use of ministerial motors over Labour’s first three months in power. But Mr S is a little sceptical about Whitehall’s commitment to its electric vehicle ‘revolution’ – not least because the bulk of its fleet still runs at least partially on petrol, with a rather high number of gas-guzzlers and carbon-emitters still very much in use. Rules for thee but not for me?
Of the 124 cars in service as of November, a staggering 70 per cent were not yet fully electric – despite the Labour manifesto calling on Brits across the country to ditch their petrol engines by 2030. A key aim of the government’s Road to Zero strategy – that at least a quarter of the fleet should be electrified by 2022 – was met under the previous Tory administration, but Steerpike can reveal that Starmer’s army have invested in 10 new petrol hybrid Jags and are continuing to use diesel engines for official business. In fact, a fifth of the fleet runs on either petrol or diesel engines, while almost half of the total government service cars are petrol hybrids. Tut tut. It reminds Steerpike of an eerily similar scenario – in which Ed Miliband in opposition called for an electric car drive but admitted that he, um, didn’t own one himself. Awkward…
There’s an exceptional number of fuel-guzzlers in the GCS. A car with a fuel economy rating of between 50 to 60 miles per gallon is generally viewed as being efficient – yet around a third of the cars used for official government business fall short of this mark. The biggest culprits include the eight petrol-powered Jaguar XFs and seven of the Ford Galaxy (also running on unleaded fuel) – both of which only manage around 35 miles to the gallon, according to their company’s tech specifications. By contrast, Mr S has to admit he was rather impressed by the government’s new Range Rover hybrid – which manages a rather impressive 409 mpg.
A Department for Transport spokesperson told Mr S:
More than 80 per of the Government Car Service vehicles are electric or hybrid. The Government is committed to 100 per cent of the central government car and van fleet being fully zero emission by 2027. As more people make a switch to electric vehicles, they’ll see the benefits of cheaper motoring, lower emissions, and we’ll drive growth and jobs in the industries of the future.
But on carbon dioxide emissions, the fleet does not fare well either. A whopping 60 per cent of the vehicles in the government’s service do not meet CO2 targets agreed by the UK in 2021, which aspired to see cars have emissions lower than 95 g/km. There is minimal reflection of this today, however, with Starmer’s army apparently still content to make use of 10 Honda CR-Vs running on unleaded fuel, which each emit a whopping 179 g/km of the pollutant – while the eight petrol-powered Jaguar XFs each release 166 g of CO2 per kilometre. So much for eco-friendly, eh?
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