Meet Mr Efficiency

On the table outside Phillip Hammond’s office is a red box with the words ‘Secretary of State for Transport’ embossed in gold. Realising it has caught my eye, Hammond opens it up — it’s empty, as befits a diligent minister. I ask if he follows the ‘Yes Minister rule’ — starting at the bottom to see what his department doesn’t want him to read. I expect him to smile but he looks puzzled, then explains methodically that he takes all the papers out and sorts them in order of importance.

This rather sums him up: Mr Efficiency. He even walks in an efficient way, his long legs taking sensible strides and his arms swinging just enough.

Until the Conservatives fell short of an overall majority, he was also the party’s Mr Efficiencies. As shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Hammond was charged with working out how the Tories would bring the deficit under control.