To think this is a fair change to the Motability scheme...

Ahh so your question is really “why does a disabled epileptic need to use a car at all?” You feel it might be perfectly possible for her to always use public transport?
I don’t know the posters with the epileptic daughter but have some understanding of the challenges that individual might face as my own adult son is epileptic. Here (rural town in uk) we don’t have buses that run door to door. It’s a mile walk along a road without pavement to the bus stop and two buses to get ds from home to college. He can’t go independently and would need me (mum) or a support worker (£20ph and VERY hard to find) to go with him. It might take 45 mins. So £40 a day. If he had a seizure on route (more likely when cold or hot and exerting yourself for mine) he would need a taxi home at the bare minimum but more likely an ambulance to hospital and then I would have to miss a days work and obviously drive to get him plus he would likely not be able to attend college for the next day (given the journey has triggered a seizure).

Trust me, me rearranging my work schedule to allow me to drive him to school is NOT a luxury experience.

Having an episode would mean her mum needs to quickly find a parking spot to attend to her and/or call 999. Before then, she'd be distracted causing her to not be safe on the road with other drivers.

Do you disagree with this? If so, why?

Just privacy?

• The leased car will be much cheaper than taxis. I have a relative with stage 4 cancer who has to travel to his nearest cancer centre twice a week. £77 wouldn’t cover one round trip. People on PIP pay for their own fuel too.
• What if PP’s daughter had a seizure on the bus or in the taxi? That could impact all the passengers if medical assistance were needed. Imagine if she emptied her bladder in a taxi. It would result in a hefty cleaning charge and the taxi driver may lose the rest of his day’s pay.
• Many disabled people wouldn’t be able to use a bus.
• What about all the other trips aside from hospital appointments? Getting to and from work, shopping, visiting family and friends. How far do you think £77 a week will stretch on taxis?
• Look at the money that local councils spend on transporting children with disabilities and learning difficulties to and from school (on average £9,000 per year per child) If possible, it’s far preferable to pay £4,000 a year and give the parent access to a vehicle in which they can do the school run.

I reckon the taxpayer is getting a good deal on their £77 a week when you consider the cost of the alternatives. Obviously it would be far cheaper to just let disabled people remain incarcerated in their homes with no access to medical care, but surely you wouldn’t advocate for that scenario?

if you don’t know why travelling with people with uncontrollable epilepsy is so difficult, why make comments on it?

Who says that I don't know? I know that it's difficult. I just don't agree that it's more difficult than with public transport except for privacy reasons. I'm not exactly against people with disabilities having privacy in vehicles but I don't believe it should be a given or criteria to qualify for motability.

"I disagree. It would be easier and safer to have an episode in a bus or taxi than if it was just her and her mum was driving."

Do you know her daughter and have personal experience supporting her when she has an episode?

Edit, quoted wrong post.

Because my roots are here. My family is here. My ancestors built and cultivated where I was born. I'm not giving all that up because some morons decided to replace one incompetent party with an even more incompetent party in haste.

I have no issue paying for things I and my family benefit from. If we are to have a ruling class of coke-addled elite scum, all they need to do is empty the bins. That's it. Empty the bins and piss off.

Can you understand that a child having a seizure on a bus would be far more difficult to deal with than in a car?

I disagree. It would be easier and safer to have an episode in a bus or taxi than if it was just her and her mum was driving.

Having an episode would mean her mum needs to quickly find a parking spot to attend to her and/or call 999. Before then, she'd be distracted causing her to not be safe on the road with ither drivers.

On the other hand, if she were to have an episode on the bus, this wouldn't be the case as her mum would be able to tend to her immediately and she or others would call 999 immediately while the bus/taxi drivers are still paying attention on the road.

So what you've said isn't correct.

Why not go and live in a developing country then where you’ll pay little/no tax. Surely you don’t want to enjoy the spoils of a developed nation without expecting to pay for it?

The poster said she drives her daughter in her daughter's car. So it means she is always with her because her daughter doesn't drive. So what's the difference between being always with her in the car and being always with her in a taxi or bus? Same thing except for privacy.

I have a DD with epilepsy. She’s under the top specialist centres - which used to mean travelling into London to go to Great Ormond Street, or now as an adult, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery next door.

We’d have to get a taxi to the station, a train into London and then another taxi to the hospital for three of us. At any point, on that journey, she could have a seizure, wet herself (because there is a limit to what any incontinence pants can hold) and be unconscious for several hours. How do you get an unconscious adult off a train, down the platform, queue for a taxi and then get into the taxi? How do you change the wet clothes of an unconscious adult on a train? You’d also have to leave the train seat covered in urine. Train platforms are a hazard in themselves - she could run off (because she doesn’t see why she should do anything anyone says), have a seizure and fall onto the tracks!

Once, she fell down unconscious in a seizure, outside the mainline terminus and refused to get off the ground. Luckily, a passing ambulance picked her up and gave her a lift to the hospital. Another time, she fell down unconscious in the hospital and was screaming her head off with pain - we had to take her to A & E at UCLH instead.

It is much less stressful to drive into London in her Motability car, even though parking in Central London is no picnic.

Social Services and the ICB both accept, it is too stressful for one adult to take her out on their own.

@IDidntSayThatSorry if you don’t know why travelling with people with uncontrollable epilepsy is so difficult, why make comments on it?

I see tax evasion as a moral imperative, to be perfectly honest. Because tax is theft, regardless of the form it comes in. With higher taxation comes struggle, with struggles comes anger, anger will compel anyone to hide money away.

A passenger in whose car? You seem to have missed the point. The mobility part of PIP is designed to alleviate some (not all) of the staggering costs of transport for disabled over 16s in the UK. Do you expect your own parents to provide a vehicle and drive you to work or college? Disabled people are not some sort of sub humans forever to be cared for by their parents.

France have a scheme whereby disabled people don’t get cars, but they’re entitled to free taxis, which the government pays for. It costs an absolute fortune and there have been massive taxi strikes this year because the government are threatening to cut the money they pay to taxi drivers. It is far cheaper to lease a car for £77 a week than allow unlimited taxis.

And surely you can understand why parents of disabled children would find it challenging to use public transport? Can you understand that a child having a seizure on a bus would be far more difficult to deal with than in a car?

If leasing a car and letting the parent act as an unpaid chauffeur is the cheapest, most practical solution then that is what we should do. It would be spiteful to do anything else, as well as far more expensive.

As a mind reader, you are not much good!

No, tax evasion bothers me far more, than PIP on Motability cars, which I see as immaterial in the context of government spending!

They can use the money to finance a car. Maybe slightly subsidised but it shouldn't be in the same categeory as ones with adaptations and a true need besides 'privacy'.

Motability car owners get free MOT, road tax, etc.

But why should she qualify if she doesn't need anything specifically for the car and she's unable to drive it? How is it different for her to be a passenger in the car with you and a passenger in a bus or taxi with you?

Completely unreasonable. A premium car costs the disabled person more, no one else. What you’re saying is Disabled people must live limited lives. They shouldn’t be allowed to pay a little more up front for a better car. You want to penalise people for being disabled.

You need to understand the costs of being disabled. If you need both a wheelchair and a car you only get one of these on Motability - not both. The NHS doesn’t cover much at all for some common conditions. There is no NHS care pathway for Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos (it almost always affects women). I have had to pay for Physio and Chiro all my adult life, even on minimum wage. I had to pay for brain and spine surgery - most people have to go abroad for this. It has taken me 6 years post spine fusion to get an NHS wheelchair and 8 years since I couldn’t walk. I have had to buy so many Orthotics for my spine, hips, shoulders, knees, ribs, elbows, ankles, feet… because they can all dislocate easily.

Grants aren’t awarded for high end specs or premium brands unless it’s the only thing available to meet the needs of the disabled person whether that’s headroom in a van for a permanent wheelchair user or space to add in all the driving controls they need. It is incredibly rare for grants to be awarded for anything but cheap brands and basic specs.

The taxes we pay services government debt. That's before you get to the massive and still growing welfare spending. Taxes have risen and have hit SMEs all over the place, minimum wage workers are being let go, but they don't matter to you as long as the rich are taxed to the point of leaving the country, thus taking all the jobs away with them, henceforth more jobs lost.

Who needs economic prosperity when the triers and the doers are totally put off from ever investing again?

@MarbleHunt
I spend much of my time reading economic reports so can’t remember where every statistic has come from but your claims here have been manifestly false as any glance at the data will show you.

What you say you want is good quality debate informed by facts, and how you behave is general character abuse (not specifically to me, but your posts here are littered with complaints about the stupidity and jealousy and economic illiteracy of others), spurious tangents (the first few of your numbered points rebut claims I haven't made), appeal to authority/knowledge (I spend lots of time reading stuff but can't remember where) and partial presentation of the data you do provide.

Let's step back and do this carefully:

The claim you made that I questioned: "disability benefits are broadly in line with the levels they have been at since the 1970s as a proportion of GDP".

I provided an OBR source, with link, for data that shows disability benefits rising from 0.2% to 1.6% of GDP. The precise thing you are making a claim about (though it only goes back to 1986). If you think something happened between the 1970s and 1986 then let's look at that. That's not what you did though.

In return you paste screenshots that you think contradict this. The mature way to proceed is: this other data says something different, let's work out why. Is it measuring the same thing? Is it a difference in sources, etc. Instead you went straight for the line that my stats are obviously false as anyone would know at a glance. I think this is bad faith from you, or bad reading.

From the parliamentary report you yourself screenshotted: "There have been significant rises in both disability and incapacity benefits". Again, disability benefits. The thing you make the claim about.

From your own chart: working age disability benefits up from about 0.2% to 1% of GDP since 2000. All work-related health-related benefits up from 1.3% to 2%.

The data you yourself chose don't support the point you made. You've added in various other claims that rebut points I wasn't making. OBR says seven-fold increase since 1986, Parliamentary report says four-fold increase since 2000. Neither supports your claim.

I think you need to get off your high horse about other people's ignorance and numerical illiteracy, and practice what you preach a bit more.

You clearly don't understand the additional costs that come with having a disabled child. Its a very different ball game to raising a typical child. Often means that one parents has to leave work or reduce working hours massively. The income penalty for parents of disabled children is huge and someone earning 60k wouldn't be able to absorb all these extra costs. I guess you are not caring for a child with very complex needs and aren't able to earn a full wage whilst having to fork out all sorts of extra coats from your own pocket?

Whataboutery!

What has redundancies got to do with people complaining they are on low wages, and fed up their tax of funding the disabled, when their tax doesn’t fund themselves? Irrelevant!

They talk about welfare. They are concerned about the Government taking actions that are simultaneously strangling any prospect of growth and therefore productivity and workforce participation falling further raising the welfare bill higher. They are concerned are primarily by the out of control pensioner expenses which make up over 50% of the welfare bill and rising rapidly with not even a mention of this by Government, and the fact that after the tax rises last year none of it was redirected to productive investment and all was thrown into the NHS black hole.

Nobody mentions Motability because such people understand the obvious fact that it’s completely irrelevant from a fiscal point of view so it’s of no interest to anybody (unless you happen to be a disabled person using the scheme which is now being sabotaged, of course). The only people who are obsessed with it are the economically illiterate and journalists antagonising them to froth at the mouth about it to clickbait them for more advertising revenue. What will matter tomorrow is whether she has any policies that will generate growth or is actually dumb enough to go ahead with attacking pensions (and therefore the investment which the UK desperately needs, while baking in even higher long-term welfare costs by damaging retirement saving) and hammers employers with more taxes again, further lowering productivity and causing more redundancies etc, and then throws yet more of this money away on inflationary handouts to her preferred people while distorting the UK tax system even further and making it an even less attractive place to work or operate a business.

@mnhq - can this thread by suspended if the poster above needs intervention or assistance as a matter of priority?

This is no longer a matter of debating points of view if something MN hosts causes this much distress. People might have a right I say what they want but at what cost.

Any chance people could pause the slinging match for a bit? On this thread at least