Hybrids

Nearly £1million of public money is being “wasted” by the Govern­ment on hybrid vehicles, it was claimed this week.

Campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance says such “green token­ism” has little environ­mental benefit, and the Govern­ment could save £888,000 by switching its 110 hybrids to 1.4-litre petrol Ford Focus cars.

According to the TPA’s figures, the dual-power Toyota Prius is £8,555 more than the Ford and the Honda Civic Hybrid £4,163 extra. Both cars are on the fleet. Policy analyst Matthew Sinclair said: “The money would be better spent on planting trees. There’s only a marginal difference in carbon emis­sions saved from switching to hybrids. But trees breathe in 730kg of carbon dioxide over a lifetime.”

The TPA said the money saved by switching to the Focus could buy 74,028 trees, which would remove more than 54 million kilogrammes of CO2 from the air. Sinclair added: “You would have to drive a hybrid car nearly six million miles before the carbon saving would equal that achieved by planting these trees.”