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

Please don’t listen to the stupid people here. Do you have anybody with you?

I see. And how much does that add up to annually - the VAT on the non-adapted vehicles and only the additional top-up payment on the ones considered to be “luxury”?

An absolute triviality in terms of the national budget. It also seems to be the case per the existing tax law that any car (even non-adapted) would be exempt from VAT if bought by a disabled person because they require the specific functions that it has as standard (auto-defrost, auto-park, 360 cameras, paddle gear changes, auto-stop, or many other safety features) without needing the specific blanket VAT exemption for the Motability scheme to make their orivate purchase/ lease also VAT exempt, in just the same way that a walking stick purchase by an able-bodied hiker is not exempt from VAT but a walking stick purchased by someone disabled who uses it as a disability aid is exempt, under existing VAT law without the specific exemption.

Presumably Government granted this blanket VAT exemption for Motability vehicles to save itself money because otherwise it will have to assess the merits of whether a car qualifies as having features that make it a disability aid separately in every individual case every time a disabled person leases or buys one privately, rather than relying on the fact that the severity of the person’s disability has been verified already by the DWP. That’ll be thousands of additional civil servants it needs to employ in HMRC.

Personally, I hope a large number of people now leave the Morability scheme and use their money to lease/ buy vehicles privately instead then bombard the Government with VAT exemption applications for every single purchase which will cost them billions in administration costs to process. It might teach them a lesson and will serve them bloody right. I’ll happily watch Reeves cry again when her latest attempts to make disabled people suffer for her incompetence and ineptitude don’t pay off.

@ninjahamster
Please talk to me - I’ve taken the liberty of DM-ing you.
For the love of fuck don’t let the clowns on here with their fucking no sense about benefits and mental health get to you. I have a severely disabled DD and I get how low life can feel in that respect I also have (to a lesser extent now) PTSD and have certainly had self-harm and suicidal ideation at several points . Please at least talk to me.

Not true.

If an individual in receipt of PIP had to fund a car independently, they would be required to pay VAT on the vehicle and therefore revenues to HMRC would be increased.

So whilst the level of paid out benefit would be the same, the tax revenues received and therefore available to be spent on other things by the Government would be increased.

Some more graphs…

Please reach out for help.

Samaritans 126 123
NHS 111 and press 2 for mental health help
If you don't feel you can talk, text SHOUT to 85258
You can speak to CALM over WhatsApp or phone, 0800 58 58 58.

I know everything feels dark and endless right now but there are people who will listen.

Some graphs

Goodness. I don’t think I need your approval for stating economic and fiscal facts, despite them being in very short supply on this thread.

As for your query about data, 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.

I will attach some graphs for you. They show:

1. UK spending on “incapacity” / disablity is very low in comparison to OECD averages.
2. UK welfare spending in general is low in comparison to other European countries
3. Spending on working-aged welfare has remained relatively static with small fluctuations between 4% and 6% of GDP since 2000, and is currently around 5%
4. Of this, less than 1% has been spent on disability benefits and the same on incapacity benefits throughout and this remains the case. Note also that some fluctuations are due to changing benefit criteria moving people from one category to another so small and statistically insignificant changes are meaningless given the entire amount is under 1% in each category
5. Total incapacity benefits are around 0.9% of GDP, exactly the same as in 1978-9. They peaked at 1.3% of GDP in the mid-1990s
6. The incapacity benefit caseload is rising farely evenly across the population age cohorts, but increasing gradually as is to be expected in an ageing society with a failing health service that isn’t fit for purpose and following a pandemic which has caused many long-term health problems, as they always do
7. That said, the highest increase in claims by far has come from over 55s, from older women in particular. No doubt some of this driven by angry WASPIs furious that they couldn’t get their pensions early so deciding to be too ill to work instead.

Graphs to follow in separate posts due to attachment limits.

Sources are OBR, ONS, Parliamentary documents, DWP data and reports, economic analysts etc.

Ah sorry, I should not have posted about that, have requested deletion.

Please don't be serious. I'm so so sorry.

Yes, my stroke happened in the night, went to bed as usual, woke up disabled.

its been a fantastic year 🙇🏻‍♀️

I don't use the motability scheme because it's actually not that great a deal (IMO) but the glee that the choice of vehicles is being restricted is vile. So much nastiness.

maybe now that I'm disabled I should give away anything nice I own & beg for donations of old & broken things. I realise I'm no longer 'worthy' of nice things.

@ninjahamster
Please tell me you aren’t serious about ending your life?
I know how horrible things are on so many ways but please that’s a turn of phrase

The Mercedes v class being taken off the list is wrong. I know lots of people use this car as it’s easy to adapt compared to others. They need to not blanket ban brands and consider individual requirements.

That doesn’t mean the scheme is subsidised by the taxpayer!

Because it doesn’t save a single penny, The saving is £0. It’s all for show and keeping disabled people in their place.

Not charging tax on something isn’t the taxpayer “subsidising it”. Unless you believe everything in the country is Government property to begin with, of course.

If they need the pip to get around...... And then they use the money for the car.... It's fair isn't it?

Like I don't know the extent of people's disability. I've not walked a mile in their shoes.

Do they not talk about the welfare bill at all?

I doubt it's a big deal and a strain on the budget. I have to admit. Disabled people need transportation to get from A to B

It is interesting that when one has detailed discussions with fixed income portfolio managers at pension funds or insurance firms (i.e. the main buyers of gilts) about their economic concerns re. the UK and latest imminent attempt at economic Kamikaze (if the leaks on Reeves’ idiotic policy suggestions are to be believed) not a single one has ever even mentioned the Motability scheme.

I wonder why…

Yes — typo for which I apologise.

You seem cross with me.

Do you agree or disagree that good policy debate is based in facts, consideration of what we want society to be, how public money is best spent, and that if we are debating numbers it’s good for them to be accurate ones?