An excellent post @Dante2
I agree that if they decide to pursue a means tested route it will affect hundreds of thousands of people plus, if they do go down that route, I wonder if they will take partners income & savings into account, as they do when assessing for care costs?
My wife (the PIP recipient) has a small private pension, but it’s still worth more than the combined enhanced rates of PIP for both daily living and Mobility. However, as PIP is tax free, she isn’t a tax payer, but she will be when she starts to receive a state pension in 4 years time, albeit at just 20%. My private pension is significantly higher than my wife’s, but I have deliberately restricted my pension income to (just) avoid triggering higher rate tax, as I can foresee a scenario where partners of higher rate taxpayers are deemed not be in need of benefits which would, of course, be deeply unfair. However, when my state pension commences I cannot avoid higher rate tax any longer, so she may be at risk then if this approach is adopted.
Savings is, of course, another area they may look at. We have gifted large sums to our kids, both to help get them on the property ladder and also as we are concerned that it would otherwise go on care costs in years to come, and the majority of our remaining savings are in my name, but if it works the same as care cost assessments they will still take money that is in my name into consideration, which could still cause a problem for my wife. The ba*tards get you one way or the other!
I am wondering if they might start making all benefits taxable (as my small Carers Allowance is) but, of course, that would fly in the face of ‘making work pay’. It’s all a minefield and I’m finding it difficult to call what might happen. I think that what’s throwing me is that this is all coming from a Labour government. Their normal political ideology, and inherent tendency towards the ‘politics of envy’, usually makes them go after those who have worked hard and been prudent with their money, in order to fund whose who do neither. I can’t see them doing a complete reversal of their usual form, which is why I keep coming back to them adopting some form of means assessment, but how they do that in a way that still makes work pay is beyond me.
You are correct that the impact on Motability and indeed the motor industry of any means testing changes could be severe, but the ZEV mandates are already crippling the motor industry and this government is still saying that they are sticking with the current targets and deadlines. However, the emergency consultation on this concluded at the end of last month and all industry bodies consulted will have undoubtedly said that the targets are unachievable, so it will be fascinating to see if they will finally wake up to the obvious fact that the targets have to be relaxed. The problem will be whether they can overcome their own political dogma. The VAT issue on private schools has been a case in point, as the costs of having to absorb the displaced kids into the state education system is likely to exceed the new VAT take. This is what happens when you have a government of political ideologists, activists and previous councillor types, almost none of which has any business experience so don’t understand the basics of supply and demand 🙄