I read with interest your report "How green are ministers' cars?" (November 23).

During the concluding part of my intervention on environmental issues on the vote of the Prime Minister's Office Estimates the previous week, I made a practical suggestion that any new cars purchased by Cabinet ministers, senior government officials, and parastatal company chairmen and senior executives should be obliged to go for hybrid cars or low CO2 emission vehicles. What these people do privately is their business.

While a working group on this matter is a positive sign, it does not take a working group to issue such a binding directive although their remit might be broader than that.

I had also suggested that all government departments, ministries and the House of Representatives itself should solely use recycled paper.

I also made a proposal to the Prime Minister that in order to avoid having ministers who send conflicting signals and avoid duplication, he should set up an inter-ministerial committee (unless it exists already) that brings together all ministries dealing with climate, energy and environmental issues.

The Prime Minister's stubborn refusal to even react to or acknowledge any of these positive suggestions in his winding up speech on the same estimates was less than reassuring and rather worrying.