Motability cars - should they be UK made?

I’m not sure I can take anything the OP says seriously, given that she was enraged that her bbq guests had the gall to eat the food she provided for them and not automatically leave enough for her to plate up for her teens to eat later that day (which she also had not mentioned to her guests).

@OverthemhillsYeah that thread infuriated me too! I’m sorry about your DD, that must be tough

I too, despise this universal presumption that us disabled people deserve only basic & functional… My mum reminds me regularly what a “very lucky girl” I am (I’m 41 & a widowed mother!) to have a brand new vehicle 🙄 And reminds me of the green 3-wheelers that Motability cars used to be. My mum’s friend asked me once after seeing my then-new Fiesta “Is it one of those freebies? Ya know, Motability?” I swiftly pointed out that I’d paid £1695 up front and pay £300 per month for it so no, it wasn’t free. Some people just don’t get that it’s no different than us going out and spending our PIP on a leased car elsewhere! We’d just have to set up a direct debit rather than our PIP paying it directly!

Same here, it’s exhausting. The financial and physical costs are so much more than people realise

@EverloreHear, hear! 👏🏻

Contrast this post, as just one of many this week, with the post about wanting a nice bathroom (no offence to the OP she was perfectly entitled to it if that’s what was booked) but got a functional horrible disabled shower room in a spa hotel.
No-one thought that room was salubrious but it’s just fine for disabled people (because why would they like colour or decorative touches).

I have to pay an awful lot more than other people to have such a hideous council dictated bathroom for DD (that doesn’t even function for her).

There’s a perfectly understood agreement by disabled users of services that they don’t get to ask for or demand more than the essentials from taxpayers.
Which is just as well because that’s exactly what they get.
£83 something for a week of coping with (my wonderful and beloved ) DD when she is in nappies and pisses her bed if I’m not fast enough to get another one on but is 3/4 of my height and 40% of my weight but I still have to carry her in and out of bed/swimming pools (literally the only activity she can do), or .. next week attend 5 separate appointments (that’s not mentioning the 46 odd calls and 16 appointments I’ve already done since term started) of the absolute terror of finding out she might now have renal problems.
I’m just waiting for the masses to start advocating wearing that symbol

THIS!!!!!! The only difference between a Motability lease and any other lease, is that the mobility element of pip (£300pm) goes direct to Motability from PIP rather than me paying them via direct debit. That’s it.

Motability already does help our economy.

Motability are a huge buyer of new cars - some of them are UK made, all are sold in the UK via UK dealerships and that money goes into the economy. UK based companies insure and maintain the fleet too, those companies hire UK based employees...

How is that not putting money in our economy?

Tax payer money is NOT being used on them! We pay £300pm for them! But of course the media won’t tell you that bit

A cost to the tax payer?! How?! I pay £300pm for my Motability car!

Yes definitely. I was just thinking this today. If tax payer money is being used it should be to help our economy . Obviously as long as suitable uk made vehicles are available. Even if just parts are made in the uk or some assembly is here surely it would help ?

They are a huge annual cost to the tax payer.

How?

Are you arguing that limiting the range of cars to choose from will save the taxpayer anything?

Or are you arguing that there should be no mobility element of PIP at all?

PIP costs the tax payer. Yes. All benefits do.

The mobility portion of PIP is the same whether you use it for a Motability vehicle, be that a WAV, a normal non-adapted car, or a wheelchair.

If I hand back my Motability scheme WAV tomorrow, the tax payer will see zero saving, I will still be in receipt of the mobility element of my PIP payment - currently, it all goes to Motability for my car.

How would limiting my choice (keeping in mind that I had the choice of one make/model in the first place, due to the size of my wheelchair) save the taxpayer?

If you're arguing there should be no mobility payment - that those of us who need a car or wheelchair on the motability scheme should get nothing toward that... erm. I don't actually know what to say to you, you want us all to stay inside our homes and never get out, go to work, do things?

Of course some people could use public transport, private hire cabs etc - lots of people can't. There are NO private hire cabs in my local area (small town) that have a wheelchair accessible minibus that will take my chair. None. Not a single one. This is not uncommon either, a friend in much larger city, has failed to find a single taxi firm that can take her in her powerchair too and she spent weeks phoning every single one!

You're also funding cars that teachers, doctors and university lecturers choose to buy with their tax payer funded salaries. Do you want to decide for them what they can buy? Or is it just disabled people who you get to choose for?
What about child benefit - do you want to decide what school clothes or Christmas presents people who receive child benefit can buy with it? Or again is it just disabled people who aren't allowed to make their own decisions?

If it makes you fortunate that you can manage without it, why describe motability cars as a perk?

Lucky me, getting such a perk. Who knew that having the inability to walk when I would like would result in receiving it. Given the choice I’d rather be able to put one foot in front of the other when I need to thanks.

Does that mean we can start burning people at the stake again?

It won't be too long. Eventually a firebombed hostel will have someone inside it.

Here is another disabled benefits bashing thread, predictably filling up quickly with dozens of awful posts, using such discriminatory and hateful language about disabled adults and children that it is a deep shame on the MN authorities that these comments have once again been allowed to stand. Were similarly outrageously offensive comments made about any other group on here I am confident they would be swiftly removed. However, apparently, the MN mods are completely cool with even extreme ableism and will not lift a finger to moderate it.
In fact, by allowing countless of these tediously, predictable ableist threads to be posted multiple times a day they are making it clear that MN endorses such views, not just tolerates them.
Their failure to delete the post advocating for the forced segregation and detention of disabled people, including children, to which I alluded in my previous post, a post which was blatant in its contempt for the lives and welfare of disabled people and which carried clear overtones of eugenics, is the clearest sign possible that the MN mod team and therefore, by extension, the powers that be, tacitly subscribe to such extreme views.
I know many posters complained about that post and were all met with a shrug of the shoulders by mods. My reply said that the suggestion of locking up disabled children was an unorthodox one but that it did not breach community standards. If the mods think that advocating depriving disabled people of their liberty is merely a quirky idea and not a horrifyingly disturbing one then that sends a very clear message to disabled posters that we are neither safe nor welcome on this site.
I will not forget the silence of the mods in tackling ableism on here and nor should other disabled posters. It needs to be called out on every revolting thread like this, even though doing so is incredibly frustrating and draining. Bigots must not be allowed to spread their ignorant bile unchallenged.

There’s been a big surge in these kinds of posts lately — a real tidal wave of resentment aimed at the poor, the vulnerable and the disabled. Social media algorithms thrive on anger and outrage, and certain groups are only too happy to stoke the fire for political gain. People are being encouraged to punch down instead of questioning those at the top and, as usual, it’s those at the bottom who end up paying the price.

Ooh. Does that mean we can start burning people at the stake again? Iron maiden manufacturers will be pleased too. And rack makers. All good for British industry.

It's the whole "history going backwards" thing. We've now left the 20th century (via the 1970s) and are now heading to the 1830s and repealing the corn laws. Undoing all the social advancement since.

Just wait until we get past 1215 and the absolute power of the state is restored.

Excellent. Another day, another outrageous disabled benefits bashing thread by a poster who has extracted a ludicrous suggestion from their fundamental oriphice without having any relevant knowledge or expertise on the subject and without doing any basic research, or even giving it a few moments consideration. It isn't as unbelievably ableist and hateful as the thread that recommended removing disabled children from their families and forcably detaining them in large state-run institutions, the OP of that one can rest easy in still retaining their title of most horrifying thread of the year!
Other posters have explained eloquently why this is a particularly fatuous plan, the fact that cars made in the UK are usually quite expensive so the OP's avowed aim of saving 'tax-payer's money' is not going to be served by this idea. Also, of course, what will be of less interest to the ableist posters on here who clearly do not care about the welfare of disabled people, it is doubtful that vehicles manufactured in the UK could entirely cater for the complex and diverse needs of people who use the motibility scheme to lease cars.
It has also been argued that it is wrong to deny disabled people as much choice than their non-disabled peers, though I see that this argument is likely not to hold much water with the kind of posters on here who seem to think that disabled people, including children, should only be given the very basics they need to subsist and that any disabled person having any enjoyment at all is a sign that they are getting too much money, regardless of if the poster actually knows where their money comes from.
Also, as has been noted on here countless times, PIP is a non means-tested benefit. This means you can work full time and still receive it, I do. The fact that some of us lazy PIP scroungers are also poor hard-working tax payers must blow the minds of some on here!
Also, as previously mentioned, motibility vehicles are not 'free', the recipient has to give up their mobility component of PIP to receive it and usually have to put down a non-refundable down payment to access the vehicle which meets their needs. These vehicles are also leased, not owned, and have to be given back after three years at which time they are sold.
Not that the ableist bigots on any of these threads are interested in facts, it gets in the way of their demonisation and dehumanisation of the disabled. I feel sorry for these people in a way, perhaps their othering of disabled people is to convince themselves that it could never happen to them, and to help them forget that they and their loved ones are only temporarily non-disabled and that a single accident or illness separates them from the life they are wishing on those of us with disabilities.
I am also sure that the posters on this thread would love disabled people to be forced to drive around in cars with some kind of symbol on the side so that everyone knows they are in receipt of disability benefits and that this car has been generously provided by the Great British tax payer. In fact, I have seen this exact thing being seriously suggested on MN threads many times, so it is not a joke, though I sincerely wish it were! Perhaps these same people would also like those in receipt of disability benefits to wear some kind of badge bearing an easily identifyable symbol so that members of the public will know who they are and can tell them off when they see them frittering away hard-working tax-payers money on things they deem to be frivolous and unnecessary.
I think there was an example in relatively recent history of a regime which denoted certain 'undesirable' groups by forcing them to wear an identifying mark, I can't remember the exact details but am sure it all ended very well.

Whatever happened to global Britain?

Seriously, restricting to UK made only favours the people who work there (few) to the detriment of everybody else (many).

Trade is good.

It's always the same undercurrent on these threads. It's ok to be disabled, and to have a little help, but not to the degree it makes others feel you're getting something they'd really like.

Added to an ever nagging attitude that the disabled should really be happy with their lot. As someone once said to a friend, "You're disabled so I don't have to be".

The thing is the vast vast majority of people who are claiming disability benefits would swap their benefits for a disability free life in a heartbeat.

I would love to be excited for what the future holds for DS as he finishes his GCSES but instead I am worried about fighting the LA for suitable provision for post 16 and then worrying what the future will hold beyond that, especially with a not too small minority of the country believing he doesn’t deserve to be supported

other posters…. If search the OP’s posts… you’ll be in no doubt of the OP’s position on benefits and PIP

And this thread is entirely in keeping with posting history