20/03/08 - Why must we pay for limo lifestyle?: Chris writes to the Express & Star

It has been revealed that the Government Car Service has spent £2.7 million of public money over the past two years on hiring private cars from limousine companies so that Ministers can be ferried around in luxury.

Twenty-one companies with fleets of expensive cars - including luxury Mercedes and Jaguar models - have contracts with the Government Car Service, the Whitehall agency that is supposed to have sole responsibility for transporting Ministers and officials on Government business.

The GCDA's own website claims that it offers a 24-hour, 365-days-a-year nationwide service so why do private limousines need to be hired at all? This massive expenditure on private limos is despite the much trumpeted £900,000 purchase last year of 110 hybrid-engined cars for the Government Car and Despatch Agency to cut down on carbon-dioxide emissions, supposedly signalling the Government's commitment to protecting the environment.
 
The fact that Labour Ministers and Labour MPs such as Commons Speaker Michael Martin are opting to use private limousines instead is yet another case of the champagne socialism which we have come to expect from New Labour.

But worse still is that the taxpayer - you and I - are footing the bill. It is time that taxpayers were put first - Gordon Brown should order an immediate end to the hiring private limos at public expense. Actions like this reveal the scant regard paid by our Labour masters to the hard-pressed taxpayers of the West Midlands.
 
Chris Kelly,
Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Dudley South,
Comber Drive,
Brierley Hill.