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

[elliejjtiny]

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.

@AgnesX why does someone need to lease an expensive rather than a basic model car?

There is no reason for a government backed ‘charitable’ scheme leasing, insuring, servicing and high spec cars to people.

I’d also query if you have the cash to fund a big deposit on a luxury car, why the government is then finding your leasing it. You could just buy a car yourself surely.

I think you are being naive about how these schemes can be abused - and tbh I think motability are themselves at fault for extending to allow this.

The sudden huge increase in people claiming for them is very suspect - and that is theme across all the challenges from the government on PIP etc, it’s that the bill is growing so rapidly it’s not sustainable to fund it. So - there needs to be an assessment of what can be afforded.

I don’t think you understand how the motability scheme works. Anyone driving an upmarket motability car will have had to put down a substantial payment. Nobody gets a free BMW, in fact, very few motability cars have no advance payment requirement. The entire mobility element of PIP goes towards the car too so people don’t have the car instead of the benefit payment.

It costs the taxpayer money to fund cars for people.

If you can afford to put an enormous deposit down on a car, I’d query why the government is being asked to fund the lease, insurance and servicing for you.

The reality is that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people claiming for these benefits and using these schemes - and it’s unaffordable for the state to continue doing so at the rate it is increasing.

The government pays to lease 20% of new cars in Britain. I’m not sure that’s a good use of funds.

You Are Definitely Not Unreasonable OP. The prevalence of misinformation and the ignorance combined with the vilification of people with disabilities in general, I feel could lead to some people being so desperate they consider suicide

I think some people see a blue badge in the window of an upmarket car and automictically assume it is owned on the Motability scheme. Blue badges and Motability are not the same thing.

If they can afford to put down a large down payment, why is the government funding the leasing, insuring and servicing of their car?

Yanbu the news like to stir the pot and unfortunately a lot of people with zero experience of the system will believe them

Sigh. Will probably hide the thread now it’s just not worth the fight mentally for me.

Here here! The blagging the system is awful. You cannot actually prove often that people are lying. How can you prove that someone does or doesn’t want to kill themselves? It’s an awful example but it’s all down to your ‘answers’.

Renting something with money given to you is getting it for free, isn’t it? I think people object to the scheme being too generous. if you can use your PIP money to lease a brand new luxury car I think most people would say it is too generous. AND there are so many stories of family members using motability BMWs to work as taxis etc.

For the very least, I think all the cars in the scheme should be built in Britain. It is outrageous all this government money - 40% of all new cars in Northern Ireland are motability!! - goes to foreign car makers. If they were built in Britain at least it would lead to jobs

YANBU at the division some articles create. YABU if you expect the system to be left as is.

You won't get pip for being suicidal that is not a descriptor they are very specific. I have a range of mental and physical conditions I'm under secondary care, been sectioned in the past have attempted suicide more times then I can remember and am on antipsychotics,mood stabilisers and anti depressants plus benzos on and off and the dwp didn't give a shit as you have to fit into very specific categories I got pip based on my physical conditions with the help of multiple consultants and my gp and even that I had to fight for on mr

It does need an overhaul because it isn’t fair, plenty of people with severe disabilities don’t get any help because they don’t fit into the narrow bands of the assessment yet others who are far less “disabled” get the full amount because partly they are better at filling in the forms. I know plenty of people who can walk a lot more than 50m and have a motorbility car, there must be other criteria! Any benefit that relies on honesty has an issue too.

My dsd relies on benefits as severely learning disabled, I’m not anti benefits but the current system is heavily weighted towards certain disability

I don't think it's ignorance. PIP is a benefit that isn't means tested. That's why people who can afford expensive cars can effectively have them subsidised by the state just because someone is disabled. They obviously aren't struggling financially and could afford a car without this money. People fundamentally disagree with this. Just because the system currently works like this it doesn't means it has to stay this way. People wanting reform aren't automatically ignorant.

I actually think it’s wrong that PIP is based on how your disability affects you as I think it’s open to too much abuse from some people. I really think it should be based on the illness itself.

My illness almost killed me and the cure is high dose steroids and immune suppressants. These almost cause as much damage and leave me highly vulnerable as the illness itself. It makes working difficult as I’m highly susceptible to infection, have blood tests monthly to keep a check on my immune system, never mind the constant out patient appointments. so I scrabble about trying to find remote work in fits and starts whilst I’m well enough. Yet still me and many like me have to prove ourselves claiming PIP for illnesses that are progressive and aren’t going to get any better.

I think it’s those that abuse the system that make it hard for those of us with chronic long term conditions to claim and be awarded PIP.

Many disabled people need automatics, many need a large vehicle for wheelchair hoists, electric wheelchairs; both of these need higher spec models, which are some of the reasons they're on the scheme.

Insurance is covered because insurance for disabled people can be ridiculous regardless of model - and if you think it isn't then you're as naive as you're accusing me of being.

Apart from that, why shouldn't disabled people have nice things. If people pay for their vehicles with their PIP they're not spending their money on something else. It's their choice. And why shouldn't they have free choice just like anyone else.

There's an underlying nasty attitude here of why should they get what we're not. Perhaps you would like people to go back to the 3 wheelers?

The same goady idiots appear every time, only the usernames change.

So not for being deaf in one ear but having a host of other issues that could quite possibly be resolved through some therapy instead of a taxpayer-funded car.

I am all for benefits being available to people who genuinely need them but being deaf in one ear or using hearing aids doesnt make you unable to use public transport. Unwilling perhaps, but not unable.

(My dad is deaf in one ear, for context.)

Yep and I bet they've never even read the pip descriptors. Just get their information from the daily mail

I know people who don't get enough help for their disability but others who imo don't deserve it.

Nope, the benefit recipient leases the car with money that they are entitled to. If they didn’t lease the car, they’d keep the money and spend it on something else. What next, no lease hire of new cars to anyone in receipt of child tax credits or other in-work benefits? Maybe people ‘poor enough’ to b be entitled to child benefit should also be banned from putting that towards the cost of a new car? You’re not really thinking it through - it’s just a knee jerk spiteful response to someone on benefits because they are disabled having something nice. You resent it. And people accuse lefties of practising the politics of envy!

Motability might be a charity, but it’s a trading arm that actually conducts the business. It makes a massive profit (approximately £500 + million pa in 2021 iirc). The business model is, they buy the cars heavily discounted, because of their purchasing power. They lease it to the disabled for all their mobility PIP at the higher rate - about £300 pcm. At the end of the 3 year lease, the disabled person has to return the car in good condition. Motability sells the car at market value. The trading arm returns some of the profit to the charity.

Manufacturers, who think they can sell all their cars at a higher price through the normal chain of normal dealers will do so - that’s why some models are not available on Motability.

It’s part of the profit, that they supply new cars to the disabled, bought at the bottom price in the market, and sold at the end of three years, at the higher market value relatively speaking. That’s why they don’t sell good second hand cars to the disabled - there’s probably much less profit in it, if any!

Also, if people are so disabled as to meet the criteria, they are probably not able to wait hours in the cold, for roadside assistance. It’s obvious new cars are less likely to break down, than say a 5 - 6 year old car! Motability’s profit model also depends on new cars, not needing expensive repairs. Our own car needed a new automatic transmission and flywheel after 50,000 miles - it cost £1,500 years ago. The specialist centre told us, they did DSG engines every day ie - Skodas, VWs and Seat automatics!

@MidnightPatrol
Because most people claiming with health conditions severe enough to entitle them to PIP are likely to be in lower paid jobs or unemployed. Why shouldn’t they have the option to pay a bit more to get a better car which would be unaffordable to them otherwise? The insurance, tax and services cost for disabled people would cost would be similar regardless. I fail to see how anyone paying extra to have an Audi or BMW is going to cost the tax payer more. I suppose you think that they should all be driving round in the old three wheeler cars!

No issue with disabled people having nice things, but im not sure the government leasing people luxury cars when more basic models are available meets the sniff test.

To be honest the resistance to the idea there might be anything in this idea at all, just demonstrates the point.

To be fair though, the down payment isn’t much. My last car was an X1 at probably 36k or so. I paid 1750 up front. I got 750 back. The car I have now is a Volvo XC40. Probably also over 30k and I paid about 2k towards it. I do need an SUV though for my disabled son. I wouldn’t be able to afford a lease on such prestige cars otherwise.