How green are ministers' cars?

Austin Gatt's recent purchase of a Jaguar as his official car may have reinforced the perception of a fuel-guzzling line-up of luxury government cars, but in reality, the Cabinet's fleet is getting greener - albeit slowly.

Besides the Prime Minister's lavish BMW 7 series and a handful of BMW 5 series bought some years ago, most of the fleet purchased in recent years are medium-range executive cars.

While not exactly green, most of them emit relatively low pollution in their class. Lawrence Gonzi's official car, which he inherited, tops the list with 259 grams per kilometre - quite an achievement for a car of its size. The older BMWs, some of them bought 10 years ago, follow with 192 to 235 grams per kilometre.

The range of the other vehicles drops to between 137 and 188 grams per kilometre - more or less in the range of an average family car. Even Dr Gatt's much talked about Jaguar is a relatively clean car with 184 grams per kilometre.

The 2.2 diesel-engine car, was bought for just over €29,500 (the government does not pay registration tax) and is actually a modest member of Jaguar's range.

The most frugal of the lot are the Volkswagen Passat belonging to the Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly and the Alfa Romeo 159 assigned to the Parliamentary Secretary for Health.

Asked whether a green policy on the purchase of official cars would be implemented following the budget's car tax reform, which penalises polluting vehicles, the Office of the Prime Minister said decisions about the cars are still being made on a case-by-case basis.

However, a spokesman said a green travel policy is currently being developed by a working group which should recommend ways of using cars less and reducing the need to travel by car, particularly when transferring documents between one department and the next.

The working group, which has met twice so far, is considering moving away from the current set up of an entire fleet of cars for every department and instead co-ordinating centrally the logistics and the movement of packages and papers of departments, the spokesman said.