No more ministerial cars? That's down to me

While many people dream of a company car and driver, former MP Chris Mullin found it difficult to get rid of his ministerial vehicle. Here, he reflects on how his comic battle inspired David Cameron to cut government cars and encourage ministers onto public transport.

Although I cannot claim to have had much influence on the last government, I do appear to have had some influence on the new one.

David Cameron remarked to me some months ago that, having read my account of the struggle to shake off a ministerial car, recounted in my diaries View From the Foothills, he was proposing to limit the supply of ministerial limos. And sure enough, he has delivered.

It was announced this week that only a handful of senior ministers who require a car for security reasons will in future be entitled to one as of right. The rest will have to make do with access to the government car pool as the need arises. Generally, however, they will be expected to make do with public transport.

The saving to the public purse will not be enormous - a mere £2.8m - but the decision to reduce by a third the cost of the government car service sends an important signal. Namely, that there is a connection between words and action.

One of the perennial embarrassments of being, as I was, a minister in the environment department was that every time a colleague talked of the need to tempt the great British public out of their cars and on to public transport, cameras would appear at the rear entrance filming ministers climbing into their official cars. John Prescott's Jaguar was a particular favourite with mischief-making journalists.

Crazy though it may seem in these days of climate change and political correctness, but the Government Car Service is - or was until recently - devoted to maximising use of the car. Drivers are paid a low basic wage and, therefore, heavily reliant on overtime. They are happy to be kept hanging around at all hours of the day and night. At any given time, Speaker's Court in the House of Commons is packed with ministerial limos, often with engines running, and drivers awaiting the pleasure of their ministerial masters.

Ministers, too, are complicit, often for the best of motives. They quickly form personal friendships with their drivers and are happy to devise unnecessary journeys in order to boost the driver's income. It is not uncommon for ministers in far flung constituencies, served by perfectly good train services, to insist on being driven weekly to and from London merely to create work for the driver.

The drivers, too, are not above making unnecessary journeys. I was horrified one summer when a government car, containing not one but two drivers from the pool appeared at my office in Sunderland - a round trip of 580 miles - merely to hand over a few boxes of not very important papers which could just as easily have been delivered by Royal Mail. What's more they were proposing to come back and collect the boxes a few days later - until I got on the phone and put a stop to the escapade.

Yes, minister

When I became a minister in July 1999 I was determined from the outset to manage without an official car. Mine was a Nissan Primera - only the top two or three people get Jags, armoured for security - but today a hybrid Prius is standard issue.

As I recounted in my diaries, shaking off the Government Car Service was quite a struggle. At that time, the only other minister to do so was Charles Clarke, then at the Department of Education - and he only managed to break free by saying that he needed to walk for health reasons. Later, we were joined by Ross Cranston, the Solicitor General, and latterly by defence minister Kevan Jones.

In November 1999, the Cabinet Office announced a review of the Government Car Service. I duly penned a note to my colleague, the minister in charge of the review, advocating a system similar to that now being introduced.

In due course, I went to see him, but it soon became apparent that he was rather attached to his car and that no significant change was likely. So it proved. It was not until last year, with the introduction of the EU's Working Time Directive - making it impossible for drivers to work 15-hour days - that change was at last contemplated.

Of course, it is not only ministers who are entitled to official cars. Senior civil servants and goodness knows how many generals, admirals and air marshals in the cash-strapped Ministry of Defence are also ferried about by the Government Car Service. In my experience, they are likely to cling to the perks of office rather more tenaciously than most ministers.

It also remains to be seen how the proposed reforms will work in practice. My guess is that they will meet with considerable resistance. It can only be a question of time before someone leaves official papers on a train and I predict this will be used as an excuse to try and re-open the entire issue.

Political will is going to be needed to make the reforms stick.

Chris Mullin was MP for Sunderland South from 1987 to 2010. The first volume of his diaries, A View from the Foothills, was published last year.

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