Robert Jenrick criticised over use of government cars during driving ban

Date: 2024-10-31
Robert Jenrick smiles as he walks along Downing Street
Jenrick received a a six-month driving ban in April 2023 for driving at 68mph in a 40mph zone on the M1 in August the previous year. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
Jenrick received a a six-month driving ban in April 2023 for driving at 68mph in a 40mph zone on the M1 in August the previous year. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock

Robert Jenrick criticised over use of government cars during driving ban

Exclusive: FoI request for four-week period in 2023 shows 55% rise in taxpayer-funded trips taken by Tory former minister

Robert Jenrick has faced criticism over his use of taxpayer-funded government cars during the period when he was banned from driving after speeding.

The Conservative leadership candidate, who was then the immigration minister, received a six-month driving ban in April 2023 for driving his Land Rover at 68mph in a 40mph zone on the M1 on 5 August 2022.

It has been revealed through a freedom of information request shared with the Guardian that Jenrick’s use of the government car service (GCS) increased sharply between April and October 2023, the period when he was not allowed to drive.

Over the course of 13 sitting days of parliament, from Monday 17 April to Sunday 14 May 2023, Jenrick used the service for 51 separate journeys. This was 55% more frequent than the 33 journeys he took from Wednesday 26 October to Wednesday 16 November 2022, just before his driving ban was imposed.

These two sets of 13 parliamentary sitting days were chosen to allow a comparison to be made with Jenrick’s then Home Office colleague and former Tory leadership rival Tom Tugendhat, who was also banned from driving for six months, from 17 November 2022 until 17 May 2023.

Tugendhat made 26 journeys using the GCS from Wednesday 26 October to Wednesday 16 November 2022, immediately before his ban was imposed.

But from November until May 2023, Tugendhat made just 11 separate journeys with the service, a stark comparison with Jenrick’s increase in use when he was subject to a ban.

If Jenrick’s pattern of government car use was replicated in all the other weeks when parliament was sitting, the data suggests he would have made a minimum of 200 GCS journeys during the six-month ban.

The ministerial code says: “Ministers are permitted to use an official car for official business and for home to office journeys on the understanding that they are using the time to work. Where practicable, ministers are encouraged to use public transport.”

Questions have been raised over whether Jenrick needed a GCS car to travel from home to office during a working week in Westminster, as his main London residence is a five-minute walk from the Home Office headquarters, which are in Marsham Street.

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A source close to Jenrick said: “These journeys are only usable for ministerial business and have to be signed off by civil servants. It is silly to suggest that he would use it for personal reasons. Anyone with experience in government would tell you that’s not possible and its just an unserious claim.”

A Labour source said: “The first question is whether Robert Jenrick made more use of the government car service than he normally would have because he was subject to a driving ban, and if so, why the taxpayer was forced to cover the costs because he couldn’t stick to the speed limit?

“The second question is whether he was using the government car service for different types of journey than he would normally have done when not under a ban? He didn’t need a car to get from home to the office, so were all the other trips he was making strictly necessary and permissible under the ministerial code?

“Finally, if this was all essential for security purposes during the period that he wasn’t able to drive a car of his own, that might be understandable, but how does that argument stack up when the security minister at the time was also on a driving ban but used GCS cars around a fifth as much?

Jenrick’s rival for the Tory leadership, Kemi Badenoch, has had her own controversies over the use of taxpayer-funded cars during her time as business secretary.

In July, the Guardian reported that Badenoch used her official ministerial car to take her to a gym in Knightsbridge twice a week on the way to work, leaving the driver waiting outside for an hour each time.

It came as unearthed footage of Jenrick captured him praising the health and social care visa as “very successful” despite calling the policy “a complete failure” in his leadership campaign.

In May, Jenrick published a report calling for a cap on the number of people entering the UK on health and care visas at 30,000 a year. However, in the video filed on 8 November 2022, Jenrick says the visa “has been very successful and we now see tens of thousands of doctors and nurses coming to the UK”.

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