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?

My wheelchair bound paralysed friend is a parent of two, so according to you as he can look after his own children he doesn’t need it.

Fraud is only zero because we don't have the technology or man power to check claims once awarded.
All claimants should have to agree to periodic surveillance to ensure what they can't do is genuine.

They should be cost effective.

(And, clearly, fit for purpose)

Does he work?

So because they are disabled they should be limited in choice like they already are with most
things but if your able bodied you can have your pick of any car. Do you know how disabilist that is.

But the higher rate pip is going towards the car in some cases

what is the need for the higher range car

most of us would like a higher range value car than we have (I would love a golf but not in my price range) but we can’t have one

so we have a car that does the job that we need it to

while I appreciate than many people will feel they are being got at the system isn’t working, it’s not working well enough for many who need that extra support but it’s working too well for people who play it

and that absolutely needs to be addressed

Can you find a car to take two children, one adult driver and one adult in their powerchair (they can’t transfer) under £30k with adaptions completed?

Yes, however that doesn’t matter as PIP is not and has never been an out of work benefit.

Ah, thanks.

The person is going to get higher rate PIP/DLA no matter what car they get.

Very few cars are fully covered by higher rate PIP or DLA alone so you need to pay an advanced payment which is NOT covered by PIP/DLA.

The higher range cars will mean a higher advanced payment. Some people won't be able to afford those payments so they don't get a higher range car.

@HRTQueen
Still want to see the abuse of the system.

I can see evidence of your resentment

“what is the need for the higher range car
most of us would like a higher range value car than we have (I would love a golf but not in my price range) but we can’t have one
so we have a car that does the job that we need it to”

For the umpteenth time - people can spend their benefit money however they want!

There is - contrary to the OP’s misleading statements - NO SUCH THING as a “Motability car”.

There aren’t cars especially made and doled out according to need.

I’ll put it another way - it’s like saying “There’s Marge in her Barclays saloon, parked right next to Gary’s paid-outright Ford and just look at Sally’s inheritance tax-avoidance purchased Honda.” It’s a scheme to exchange benefits for a car - any car that you want if it’s available via the car dealership on the Motability scheme.

Why does it matter if Susan uses all her mobility component to lease a wheelchair or a WAV or a Ford Torneo or a fucking tricycle.

WHAT the fuck does it have to do with what you chose to do with your money?

Our dealer are arranged to buy our last one for his wife (only know because she lives locally and we've seen her drive it) Nissan that only had 3.5k miles on it. It was completely spotless.

I developed a dural ectsasia which quite frankly has ruined my life and I'd gladly swap my PIP and go back to work again and finance myself again.

And @HRTQueen - the higher rate mobility component ALWAYS- not sometimes - is spent on the leased car. Always. Thats the Motability scheme - that’s exactly what it means. Nothing more complicated than that.
If someone buys their car and doesn’t use the Motability scheme at all, ever, they can spend that money on crack cocaine.
Just like people on state pension and universal credit and Attendance Allowance or Tax credits or ESA or Child Benefit.

Nope. You’ve still lost me.
can you try again. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.

are you trying to say Motability should lose money on the cars at the end?

@FallingIntoAutumn
i was replying to your first message not your second

Sorry your first post

No I'm aware of that. Just wondered.

🙄 fine take it that way

there is no resentment I have supported people (work) with PIP applications and mandatory reconsiderations where they have received higher payment because they were entitled to it (and it should never have got to that) I am aware how ridiculous the questions are on an assessment (which now is online) and the whole assessment process

people do abuse the system this has to be addressed but while we can’t have conversations without it being all one side or the other it doesn’t get addressed (as with anything that is in public discussions now)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002ks2s?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

If anyone wants to listen 😁 👂🏻

Yet another ableist thread. So here’s a reality check.

Yes, there is PIP fraud, but it’s the lowest of all benefits at just 0.2%.

Secondly, there isn’t a one size fits all disability that means you can give us all the same car and consider the job done. My needs are different from the needs of other Motability customers.

I’m currently in lease extension because I’m too disabled to work and the only cars on the scheme I could switch to are the Skoda Kodiaq and the Hyundai Santa Fe, both of which carry heavy up front payments because that’s how the car manufacturers make up the difference between the lease payment - my HRM - and the price of the car. I can’t afford an up front payment so I’m hoping to be well enough to work and save up for the up front payment before March 2027 when I’ll have to surrender my current car. And bear in mind my needs have changed since I got the current car so it’s not got everything I need, but it’s better than no car at all when you live rurally and public transport isn’t available.

PIP and Motability, when I’m well enough, are vital in helping me be able to get to work, earn money and pay the higher rate taxes I’ve paid because of the salary I earn for the work I do. I know: shocker, disabled people work, too.

But if you really want to get more of us working, start challenge the return to office directives that are making it harder for us to work. The pandemic sucked for a lot of reasons, but it proved that people can work remotely and that it works well for companies to allow this. Now, there will always be micro-managing bosses who can’t handle trusting their staff to work when they can’t see them, and there will be others who have taken on a big office and want to see it used, regardless of whether that’s actually better for the staff, and lack the imagination to use the extra space for something else. Like supporting new businesses or charities with space, giving room to community initiatives, etc.

Start challenging councils and businesses when you see that spaces aren’t accessible. And don’t use disabled parking bays because you’re “only going to be 5 minutes”, because they’re not for you and you can damn well park further away and walk and make a disabled person’s life easier in one simple act.

Disabled people make easy targets for those who need one in order to make themselves feel better. But remember, the majority of us end up disabled at some point in our lives. You are not immune from the possibility of something happening that changes your life forever, and how people treat you when that happens says more about them than you.

I challenge you to live a day in my life and think I have it easy. What support I get I am so grateful for, but I’m hardly living high on the hog.

I am aware how ridiculous the questions are on an assessment (which now is online)

Not all assessments are online.

It would seem the OP has shuffled off

To look for more things to “google” and start and Op about

We are on our third Motability vehicle for our daughter, who is 10. Previous two vehicles - the first a 7-seater Peugeot to accommodate our family needs, the second a Ford 5-seater once son had gone to Uni - both required upfront deposits of £3k each. Our new vehicle is a WAV (if you don’t know and/or are naive - Google will help). Our advance payment was £13k, with monthly payments taken out of her mobility element if her DLA.

We need this vehicle because she is too heavy for me now to lift in and out of a standard car and I drive 100 miles a day to take her to our local SEN school.

I also work full time, I am 51 and have worked full time since I was 16, with three six-month maternity leaves.

I do not feel guilty for claiming this “benefit” - I have paid enough tax to supplement this 🤬

I wonder how many people on this thread genuinely believe that motability cars are free?

There was an astonishingly spiteful thread on here the other day about how people should spend their child’s DLA/their own PIP. One poster declared that disabled people should only travel by ‘basic saloon’. Unfortunately it autocorrected to basic balloon. I wondered how many hot air balloons have suitable wheelchair access.