Motability cars - should they be UK made?

[Pandersmum]

Motability cars are currently in the news with suggestions VAT will be added. I realise they are a lifetime to some and a perk to others. They are a huge annual cost to the tax payer.

AIBU to think that all motability car choice should be limited to those manufactured in the UK? This would support British manufacturing worker jobs and increase UK business tax revenue whilst still providing cars for those who need them?

We are! DD has a Motability car, but she’s not allowed to drive even if cognitively she was able to, which she’s not. She could well choose to run people over, for instance.

We and the care staff, where she lives, only drive the car either with her in it, or for her benefit, such as shopping for her. We have two cars of our own. She can walk, although not reliably, and could well go to the gym if she wanted to - in fact, she needs activity and weight bearing exercise for her health conditions. She would need to be under 1:1 supervision, the whole time she was there though.

VAT registered businesses can reclaim input VAT on vans, bought for their business. So, if VAT is going to be charged on Motability vehicles, why not extend that to all business vehicles and raise even more money for the Treasury?

No. This constant demonisation of people with motability cars, and people on disability benefits in general, is ridiculous. Motability cars are paid for by disabled people with their mobility element. They then usually pay £000s extra in advance payments for a car they have to hand back 3 years later and will never own. Why shouldn’t they be able to choose a suitable, reliable car that meets their needs? Getting the higher rate of mobility for either DLA or PIP is ridiculously difficult and only awarded to the most severely disabled claimants. And rightly so. Stop reading the daily fail and do your actual research. And no, I don’t have a mobility car. I’m just angry at the constant barrage of attacks on disabled people right now from a government that are using this false narrative to distract the general public from the things that are really damaging the country.

Some people are eligible for a Motability Foundation grant for adaptations, but that depends on income/savings. Not everyone is eligible even if the adaptations are essential. We funded DS1’s adaptations.

I don’t know about the scheme but doesn’t it support the car industry in terms of companies making money by selling and maintaining vehicles?

If there was no scheme then wouldn’t claimants get that money to use on taxis?

Why would British manufactured be prioritised over stats like cost of a new car and running the car? (I assume that owners pay for MOT and maintenance ?) By that metric wouldn’t taxpayers get a better deal if say Japanese or South Korean cars were the only choice? (That’s not my opinion btw just an argument for debating purposes)

No, it’s ableism to think disabled people should have fewer choices than non disabled people. Motability’s customers are paying to lease their car, it’s not free.

Anyway to answer the OP’s naive question-
No people who require WAVs cannot simply be forced to purchase British made vehicles nor should they be because there aren’t any to lease or to buy.

I would love to have my Peugeot van/WAV replaced by a Jaguar version for the same down payment of several thousand pounds and the full DLA mobility component but I don’t think they do WAVs.

Are people hoping wheelchair users will stop going out?
Are they hoping they can just attach a wheelchair via a towbar to a mini?

I see sour chops Reeves is planning on overhauling Motability - stopping high end cars being available and stopping certain types of disability qualifying. I assume she has this power because the charity (Motability) gets tax relief and possibly funding from the government to run the scheme.

Im assuming that announcement by her has sparked the question from the OP.

I’d dearly love to see currently non-disabled spend as much thought or time on how to make life equal for disabled people saving the government and the almighty taxpayer money WITHOUT making sweeping claims about knowing an x who claims y fraudulently or dramatic statements about work being a mug’s game or about there being an empty purse (which of course means the disabled are the first to be targeted).

I’d love for them to care that much about the rights disabled people have but often cannot exercise, without frothing about the cost of making an ill-equipped society include people who are unfortunately enough to be severely disabled.

That failure of concern seems to be less for people developing disabilities over their life (MND, Parkinson’s, cancer causing disability) than for those born with disabilities . It’s as if because the latter couldn’t happen to them (the latter won’t apply to anyone not disabled right now, unless they have a disabled child they birth in the future or their child births in the future). And it seems like the latter is somehow “lesser” than people born without disability.

A very sad time for people either severe disability.

You can have a car you pay a lot for - it won’t suit your needs and you won’t ever own it - but it will be British.

I have just looked at the cars currently available with no down payment. Many of them are models I looked at when recently changing my car and very few of them could take DS standard wheelchair easily, especially not without taking the whole boot space. People who need anything more than then basic car will struggle to not have to pay some sort of advance payment.

DS isn’t entitled to motability but I did end up buying an ex motability car which comes with the bonus of knowing it had to be maintained to the right standards. So motability cars help the second hand market!

The resentment about the Motability scene is completely illogical.

If it was scrapped then disabled people would have to use their PIP/DLA to lease cars from other outlets. I just quickly checked and we could lease the car we have now for less than the PIP payment we sign over to Motability.

The difference is the money we pay now is ploughed back into the scheme for the benefit of all its members, rather than shareholders. Why is that a bad thing?

Im not on the MN camp that there is zero fraud because they do find some fraud its just statistically zero which isnt the same as none, and then some will go undiscovered as well.

But there are only 815,000 motability cars in the uk. The chances of all these mumsnetters (and telegraph readers) knowing several people fraudulently getting a motability car seem out of kilter with the total number of users. Even if you quadruple the rate of known fraud of other benefit types it just seems high.

Choosing Vauxhall or Ford say would give those companies a huge competitive advantage over other manufacturers- this would hugely affect the car market and would probably not be allowed. But anyway, disabled people often have quite specific requirements and can't guarantee that a single brand or two will have a model that suits them.

Because we are funding it.

Do you get a choice on other things provided for you?

Why don’t we just do what the daily mail suggested and make them one type of shitty car that says DISABLED on the side in massive letters?

So fucking tired of this divide and conquer narrative when it comes to disabled people in the U.K.

No the government is funding the DLA/PIP.

Those who are entitled to higher rate mobility of either (which is very hard to get) can make the choice to use their mobility element towards a car which meets their needs. This comes with many bonuses but also many restrictions. It also in most cases comes with an advance payment.

The cost to the tax payer is no more than if someone decides to keep the mobility payment and use it towards taxis or buying a car privately.

There is only ever a limited range of cars available at any given time. You can't choose whatever car you like from the entire new car market. So you will be relieved to hear that I'm sure.

How many cars?

It's motability ,and it won't just be t for ADHD ,they will also have to prove SMI or virtually unable to walk if DLA or the inability to travel independently or plan a journey if PIP
But you carry on spreading misinformation 🙄🙄🙄

And we are still funding this

Having a choice of car makes absolutely zero difference to the taxpayer.

The PIP/DLA higher rate mobility payment remains at £77.05 a week regardless of whether the recipient uses it for the gas bill, food, a Motability lease or cocaine.

Disabled people give up their mobility allowance from PIP to pay for the car. If they didn’t have the car, they’d get the cash. It makes no difference to the taxpayer if they get car or cash so that rage bait sentence is pointless.

Disabled people give up their mobility allowance from PIP to pay for the car. If they didn’t have the car, they’d get the cash. It makes no difference to the taxpayer if they get car or cash so that rage bait sentence is pointless.

Disabled people give up their mobility allowance from PIP to pay for the car. If they didn’t have the car, they’d get the cash. It makes no difference to the taxpayer if they get car or cash so that rage bait sentence is pointless.

Disabled people give up their mobility allowance from PIP to pay for the car. If they didn’t have the car, they’d get the cash. It makes no difference to the taxpayer if they get car or cash so that rage bait sentence is pointless.

I’m a wheelchair user.

i go to the gym.
i have a specialist physio there who works with me to keep my upper body and core strong.

my gym has wheelchair access and wheelchair accessible machines.

it’s really important for disabled people to keep as healthy as they can.

Ahh so you’re one of those who thinks disabled people should just be left to rot. Fair enough.

Wow. Quite some responses on here. To clarify I never said those without need should not have access to a mobility scheme supported vehicle nor did I intend this post to be a ‘ableist’ post, bashing ‘benefits’. It was a suggestion of how potentially to increase tax revenue.

I believe UK manufactured cars are Toyota, Nissan, Vauxhall, Mini, Jaguar Land Rover plus other prestige marques. Quite a range

The harsh reality is that the current levels of government spending on public services, NHS, education, benefit payments etc is not sustainable. For those of you who think it is, please take your heads out of the sand, especially if you have children.

There is simply not the tax revenue in the UK currently that it needs. The books don’t balance. So the government needs to think of ways to increase tax revenue. ‘Tax the Rich’ is one option, but it really will have unintended consequences in the future, and if there is a desire to continue to fund public services as current and indeed to a higher level, we need to get creative with how to generate more tax revenues for the Government.

If the 5 year view on public spending increases is real - we will go bankrupt as a country. The level of interest to be paid on debt payments will simply be unsustainable. Then everybody, deserving or not, loses out.

So, to stop this happening, we have to increase taxes now to sustain the current and forecasted level of UK govt spending.

Boosting UK manufacturing productivity generates not only tax revenue from businesses in the form of corporation tax, but provides more jobs which also provides another personal tax revenue source. It provides further tax revenues from ‘levy’ payments on energy and packaging, and in the case of the automotive industry, generates further wider supply chain jobs.

We should all be looking at ways to boost the ‘UK plc’ which would help to fund future public services.

What is clear from this thread that many people do not agree!