To be sick of all the newspaper articles saying lies about DLA and PIP

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To get any DLA or PIP you have to be significantly disabled. To get the higher rate of either part you have to be severely disabled.

A motability car is not free, it's rented. To get one you need to either be unable to walk 50 metres or have a severe learning disability, which is very difficult to get.

It's always happened but since the stuff in the news about changes to PIP it's got worse.

Articles in the newspapers claiming you can get a free car for bed wetting, which just doesn't happen. There will be children like my ds who get DLA because they have a number of problems including bedwetting but nobody gets high rate mobility for bed wetting on its own.

There are other articles about people claiming PIP and DLA for various minor sounding conditions and I am so fed up with it. I know from experience that the newspapers will have talked to people claiming PIP/DLA and twist everything they say to make them sound like a scrounger.

All these articles are giving off the message that anyone with any minor disability can claim loads of benefits.

I know many people professionally and personally that claim PIP when they have mild anxiety. Some just had an online form and obviously exaggerated their conditions often with help from coaches on Tik Tok. One in particular works in banking with a huge salary, commuting every day. I fail to see how they need help to be independent! This will be replicated I'm sure across the country.

Ah I'm getting confused between Motability and a blue badge (in my area anyway).

I have a low "moving around" award but 10 points for the following a journey one so that's where my confusion is coming from

This post is for the ableist who thinks disabled people shouldn't have nice things. So you're bleating about how terrible it is that we are able to have "luxury" cars from Motability.

I assume you're talking about low end luxury, seeing as high end luxury cars are not available on the Motability scheme. So we're talking cars like BMW and Mercedes, yes?

There's only one Merc available on the Motability scheme. That's it. One. It certainly wouldn't be of any use to a wheelchair user needing adaptations.

The deposit on the basic Merc is £8k. That's with no added extras, no adaptations etc. That's just the deposit. This has to come out of the disabled person's own money (as do extras and adaptations!), so a fair whack.

Then, not only do you not get that deposit back, but you have to lose the entirety of your mobility element of PIP, leaving you down £400 a month. THEN, if that's not bad enough, you have to give the car back in three years, losing everything you've spent and having to start all over again. You can't keep the car - you have no choice but to get a new one.

So you can shove your "PIP should be means tested" bollocks right up your non-disabled arsehole, and perhaps do the smallest bit of research. Because you don't see all disabled people driving round in Mercs and BMWs, do you?

I agree. I am sick of the judgement we are subjected to. I got enhanced rate on both - I didn’t expect it as I had heard how hard it is to get. It was such a relief to be validated and have SOMEONE listen to everything I have to go through every day. We don’t get that much chance to be heard. Even the doctors only give us 5 minutes and don’t listen to how much of our life is impacted. I struggled with the forms - it took me 8 weeks due to arthritis and blisters on my hands. I sent in 73 pages of recent evidence from the hospital. I was put through a very rigorous telephone appointment. It wasn’t easy to get. But just being heard by that assessor and having my needs acknowledged meant so
much. But then we are just subjected to scorn by everybody else.

Our deposit was £5k. Nothing fancy, just a car that is accessible for my son's wheelchair.

Well, I am a net contributor by quite some margin, so I am not “people who do not work” and you can keep your irrational rage and sneering at the unemployed to yourself.

It was precisely this type of sneering by people like you that I was referring to (since clearly you are one of these people as it hit a nerve): people who are furious that severely disabled people get some financial support which you pay nothing towards, while you are being funded by others as well when you are not disabled, yet seem oblivious to this. Your post exemplifies precisely the attitude to which I referred.

Isn't it time we stopped shouting at each other over this thread . People are saying cut mobility part of p.i.p well that's ok untill it happens To you and you need transport . Is it possible to means test p.i.p no because in law it's not a means tested support benifit and the country would need an extra 7000 staff civil servants to work it out, as it is the present government wants to get 10,000 staff . Under these circumstances how can the country monitor something like this . As if 10,000 civil servants you could wait 2 years for a passport or driving licence if you do means testing on p.i.p it will cost millions more than purging people on the benifit . As for getting p.i.p in my experience it's very hard to get it . If someone fools the system you have to pay all the benifit you have been paided under those circumstances l know people who have been made homeless to pay back the money. If all of us belive what a paper tells us most of it is just stirring up so please don't just read it check the facts on Google please that said 99 per cent of disabled people need this higher amount of money to get out off home. Least we forget think back to covid when we all at to stay at home would you want that l think not .

The mental health thing is a problem.
The assessment is very physically based.
If you can walk, use your hands, you can work sort of thing.
It's a double edged sword. Easy to fake, maybe, bit it means that genuinely ill people, mentally unable to work,( and, yes, there are many psychological and neurological conditions that applies to)
are penalised financially.

It's ragebait stories for all the Deform ation
RWers that would rather workhouses made a comeback 🙄😳😔

I agree it's sad, the Nordic countries don't seem to perpetuate hate.

Isn’t ‘deformed’ in itself ableist? It’s not a word I would use.

You’re confusing 2 issues here, issue one being our economic woes and the failure of wages to keep up with the cost of living, and two the massively detrimental impact to our economy of so many people being out of work for whatever reason.

Saying somebody does not have the right to take a dim view of the benefit system because they’re not a net contributor is a madness. I’m not a net contributor but DH is. I’m guessing your well paid job exists because there are people below you who don’t earn a net contributor wage? So they are essential. Benefit claimants who don’t work, are not essential.

I’ve not read every comment but I’m astounded by the attitude of Motability being the chance to get a big unnecessary car to drive around in. Firstly everyone’s needs are different. My son get high rate and we have a Motability car. His mobility part of his DLA award pays for this. If we didn’t use it for his car we would get the exact same amount in the bank. So please tell me why it is anyone at all would have a n issue with it. Are disabled people not allowed a nice and comfortable car. Like they aren’t discriminated against enough as it is! The mind boggles. People choose to pay advance payments towards them so that they are fit for purpose and so they feel safe driving them. What they choose is no one else’s business. Motability helps so many people beyond benefit recipients and supports many charities that help people with disability needs. My son for instance has a mobility buggy. It can fit an adult in it. It takes up the whole boot of our Skoda enyaq. We literally had to choose the car based on this. There were very few cars that could fit it. We chose to sell our old car because it didn’t feel safe and in the event of a breakdown anywhere let alone on a motorway our son would not be safe, as he elopes. So how about not judging why you think it’s unnecessary for someone to have just a basic car?! If that were the case we’d all be driving C1’s wouldn’t we. And above all else DLA and PIP may be exploited by an absolute minority, but the majority of awardees have to jump through months of hopes and sleepless nights of worry for their parents/carers particularly DLA worrying if they’ll get the support that their child needs and often being rejected to the point of tribunal. It is far from easy to get any disability benefit! Period.

And to be clear, I don’t mind the fact that I subsidise you either, @Wildflowers99 . I’m very grateful for my hairdresser and my postman etc. I just find this nastiness towards disabled people - as the most vulnerable in our society, with the most difficult lives - extremely unpleasant and I have noticed how every time the country is in financial difficulty there is a wave of people who want to deal with this by disadvantaging further those who are already the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.

I find it extremely unpleasant, but also interesting that this resentment and desire to impoverish the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of society further seems to come almost exclusively from people who are not in fact the ones paying for it and are also being subsidised themselves by those of us who are net contributors. The hypocrisy is so obvious yet bizarrely such people seem to be oblivious to it and to lack any capacity for self-reflection.

On this thread and many others, and in the comments on articles in the Daily Mail, Express and their ilk, often these people declare openly that they don’t understand economics (yet apparently we’re expected to care about their nasty, irrational rants and treat these “opinions” as though they have credibility even when they are provably, factually wrong). They don’t care that - aside from being callous - actually it would cost those of us who are paying for PIP and other benefits more to withdraw the meagre support currently provided (presumably they don’t care about this because they aren’t the ones funding it, yet they often try to hide behind a pretence of “good value for taxpayers” when they themselves are not net taxpayers, which is very disingenuous). They also seem to be oblivious to the fact that the UK has one of the lowest levels of financial provision for those with disabilities in the OECD.

These posters who appear every time there is a thread or article on such a topic aren’t interested in facts, at all, and almost seem proud of this. If one makes the mistake of attempting to engage them in a rational discussion to try to understand the reasons for their point of view it is usually met with defensiveness or personal insults. It is very interesting to note these similarities between such posters in terms of the mentality involved, this rage about a bill to which they are asked to contribute absolutely nothing.

My point about the billionaires is that under the current rules they are as entitled to claim PIP as anybody else. Of course there won't be many or potentially even any doing this but there will be a hell of a lot of people on well over the average wage doing this. This is why you have people using PIP to part fund luxuries because they can easily afford all the essentials and more already.

The question is are why as a society comfortable with this? You can be as facetious as you like about all of this but ultimately the question being asked isn't an unreasonable one. We means test a hell of a lot of benefits because not only is this ultimately how we can afford a welfare system that is as generous as it is but also so that the system is seen to be fair.

I see. So you view disabled people who cannot work as “not essential”. Their inability to contribute economically makes their existence pointless from your point of view, does it? Never mind that you are talking about human beings.

What do you propose we do with them?

Perhaps there are some other countries that you might consider moving to that would align better with your “values”.

And then the whole pathetic “oh but my DH…..”. It’s the 21st century. Nobody cares what your husband earns or has achieved in his career. Women are considered to be separate human beings these days not marital chattels.

You have conflated all sorts of things.

My point about 'levelling' the playing field is that it's often impossible to level or even things out in the way you and others seem to suggest. Having use of a car is not the same as someone being able to use public transport. It just isn't. You can argue it is the only practical way for disabled people to get around but that isn't the same as making things even or levelling the playing field.

It also really isn't true that anything other than the current system will cost tax payers more money. I know you really wish it were true but PIP absolutely could be means tested like Child Benefit. You might prefer it wasn't and suggest this is imperfect but it absolutely could be means tested in this way.

Your points about poverty in disabled households aren't really relevant to what I am suggesting. I think PIP should be means tested, not abolished. The people that can use their PIP to part fund a luxury car are not going to be housebound without it. You really can't have it all ways.

That last line about benefit claimants not being essential from that poster has really got to me.
I am nonworking benefit claimant. I still buy from shops, and that keeps them open and the people working them in their job. Then their manager and then the CEOs that are actual net contributors.
People are so much more than what they earn. Some of us can't earn, and we try and find purpose in life through other ways. That could be volunteering or just being a nice person and making their friend's lives pleasant in this shit world.
I should not let words on a screen affect me so much, but that was plain nasty. I just hope people feeling really fragile about this right now are ok.

(Maybe should have stayed with cars we all recognise as notability vehicles instead of putting lots of everyday cars on the list.

Couldn't agree more. I have a long term health condition that I know people with less have got pip for and don't have to work.
I manage to work part time hours but am getting harassed at the U.C meetings to work more hours as its not enough and keep being threatened with them reducing my money if I don't find more hours.

I haven't even tried to claim anything else as I just think what's the point. All that will happen is they will think I'm jumping on the band wagon and I'll be made to feel even more shit than I do now.

The ones abusing the system are making the ones with genuine issues look like liars. I'm fed up of feeling like I'm 'on the scrounge' because I'm struggling to do what they tell me I have to do.

But aren’t new cars provided under mobility as they are more reliable in general than a used car and a disabled person or person with a disabled child is in general likely to find it more difficult in the event of a breakdown. I have an autistic child but he doesn’t have severe mental impairment so we aren’t entitled to higher rate pip or motability car. A few years ago he was in car with me and clutch went on a main road. so car wouldn’t go. Some kind people stopped and were helping me push car off road. Ds went into a panic and went into fight or flight mode and ran off, I ended up abandoning the car with the kind strangers and chasing after him. He is autistic but at least has enough understanding not to run in the road, I can’t how imagine how frightening it would be to be in a similar situation with a child/ adult with no understanding of the road it could be a tragedy. I know new cars can still go wrong but overall they are more reliable

It has been explained to you why those of us who are actually paying the bill are “comfortable with this”. Means-testing it would cost more. It was highly amusing that you used child benefit as an example when it is widely accepted and well-documented in numerous independent economic studies that means-testing that has cost far more than it saved. Totally economically illiterate, even if you don’t care at all about the impact on people. The only people that are better off as a result of means-testing child benefit are the additional staff that HMRC has had to employ to process the additional tax returns.

Very few people claiming PIP are very high earners, even if they are technically entitled to it due to the barriers to employment for disabled people, which again are very well-documented, along with household earnings for families including disabled people compared to those who are not disabled. But of course… you have no interest in facts or economics, as you said previously.

Your insinuation that billionaires are claiming it is absurd. It would cost them more money for the time they’d spend filling out the forms and doing the assessments that they would receive if they received the maximum rates of PIP for the rest of their lives.

Means-testing it would create another cliff-edge in the tax system and reduce employment participation because it would make it unviable for many disabled people to continue working so would increase benefit costs because these people would then have to stop work and claim universal credit and PIP. It would create a perverse disincentive for disabled people to work, precisely like the perverse disincentives that the recent reforms to universal credit were attempting to remove.

Which part of this do you not understand? Why do you keep asking the same question when the answer has been explained to you already? How do you expect anybody to answer your question if - when the answer to it is explained, which I’m afraid inevitably involves economics - you declare that you know nothing about it but aren’t interested in learning anything about it either?

This is grim. What purpose would this serve other than humiliation?

It is totally mind blowing to myself, as to why that poster would wish for peoples vehicles to be so readily recognisable, considering that the driver/ passenger of the car is likely to be very vulnerable in some capacity. Just why?

I am sorry. There are some absolutely appalling and dehumanising comments on these threads and I can imagine it must affect you, and many others, very badly to read them.

Of course you have value. These people are always seem to seek out such threads/ articles to shout their mouthes off about their nasty “opinions”, so it probably seems like such views are more prevalent than they are in reality, and I promise you that not everybody thinks this way. They really don’t. Not that that will make it any less upsetting to read. Some posters don’t seem to think at all about the real people who will be reading the things that they write. 😔

And as a totally seperate point that would probably end up costing the scheme more overall more as such a vehicle wouldn’t have a second hand value