Motability scheme takes taxpayers for a ride, awful article in the times from Alice Thomson Motability scheme takes taxpayers for a ride The biggest benefits scam of all is brand new, top of the range cars, taxed, MoT’d and insured, for the not-so-disabled Alice Thomson Tuesday March 18 2025, 9.00pm, The Times Do you want a free new car? There are 167 models to choose from on the Motability website. If you hand over part of your weekly mobility benefit, you can drive away with a leased Kia Picanto worth £15,000. If you part with your entire allowance of £75.75, you can move up to a Nissan Juke SUV, priced at £23,000, or a Volkswagen T-Cross. If you have the finances, you can pay £7,999 on top of your allowance and pick up the keys to a £52,770 BMW i4 M Sport or Mercedes CLA Coupé. Each vehicle comes with free road tax, RAC breakdown cover, servicing and MoT, tyre and windscreen repair, installation of a charge point for electric cars and insurance paid for three named drivers: family, friends or carers. Claimants can apply for a new model every three years. To qualify for one of these taxpayer-funded cars (or a scooter or powered wheelchair), you must receive the enhanced mobility allowance as part of a personal independence payment (PIP). And for many severely disabled people they are a lifeline, giving access to the world of work, school and community, getting them to hospital appointments without having to rely on erratic, expensive and often difficult-to-access public transport. A portion of their disability benefits goes directly to Motability Operations, the private company that runs the scheme and which is overseen by the Motability Foundation charity. The scheme started out with the best intentions. It was introduced in 1977 by Jim Callaghan to replace the rickety single-seater, three-wheeled Invacars — inferior Reliant Robins — donated to the disabled after the war. His government introduced the mobility allowance to help disabled people choose a suitable vehicle including any necessary adaptations under a government car-leasing scheme. For 50 years it has helped those with conditions such as cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s and their families. But it wasn’t until the increase in claimants post-Covid that the scheme ballooned. Motability cars now count for one in five of all new vehicles sold in the UK. Last year a record 815,000 people (out of 1.3 million who receive the enhanced mobility award) were signed up for the scheme, an increase of more than 170,000 in one year. This fleet of cars, the biggest in Europe, is valued at £14 billion. Several factors have driven this. Over the years eligibility has widened so people who can apply now include those who are obese or have severe back pain or eczema, suffer from depressive disorders, debilitating anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or autism and who have a problem planning journeys or walking more than 200 metres. The numbers have spiralled since almost all PIP assessments stopped being in person during the pandemic. If you go on TikTok or Reddit there are myriad self-proclaimed “advisers” showing you how to be eligible for the enhanced mobility award and a free car. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, disclosed this week that PIP claims were rising by roughly 1,000 every day. In certain areas of the country word of mouth has meant neighbours who see gleaming new cars on their street are looking at ways to access the scheme. In Gloucestershire last month, a minicab driver admitted to me that he sometimes used his wife’s Motability car for work because it is brand new, he doesn’t need to pay for its upkeep and she is housebound with “chronic ADHD”. He got the idea from a fellow taxi driver. The mother of a child with autism showed off her new free school-run chariot on TikTok to advertise an “adviser” service. Meanwhile, Bernard and Ann McDonagh, who were caught doing a runner from a restaurant in Swansea last year, used their Motability scheme Ford Transit van as a getaway car. As always, those who are abusing taxpayers’ money are ruining it for those who have a genuine, desperate need for the service. Motability Operations receives much of its income from public funds yet its website advertises “freebies, grants and discounts”. It has little incentive to monitor the system. The remuneration of its chief executive, Andrew Miller, totalled almost £750,000 in pay and bonuses last year. Why hasn’t the government done something about this? When Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, stood up in parliament today trying to persuade MPs of the need to slash the welfare bill, she should have committed to overhauling this allowance rather than simply suggesting she might tighten PIP awards. It was Labour’s John Mann, now Lord Mann, who said nearly a decade ago: “Motability is making too much money. It needs tighter criteria. Three years per car is too short a timeframe.” Part of the problem for successive governments has been that the Motability scheme has been keeping many car dealerships afloat when consumer demand for new cars dropped, while providing a pipeline of nearly 300,000 well-maintained secondhand cars a year. People with disabilities require help with transport to prevent them becoming isolated and to assist them, where possible, back into the workforce. Yet go on the Tube or train and you see how they are being cruelly penalised: lifts are often broken, ramps never materialise and many venues make little attempt to provide enhanced access. When my mother was in a wheelchair she struggled to work or to socialise outside her home. She couldn’t go to most offices, shops, events or cafés. The disabled desperately need help to make their lives not merely bearable but fulfilling. What they don’t need is their neighbours gaming the system to put a gleaming new BMW in the driveway every three years.
Thank you f it reposting in full.
In essence the article is right. There are too many examples of the scheme being misused. In many instances it’s where a car is provided for someone whose condition has them housebound. Cars being used for people who are too mentally impaired to be able to leave the house are being used as a family car taking ‘benefit of the claimant to or beyond the intent let alone the written limits.
There’s so many instances we all probably know of someone who pushes the boundaries. I know of an instance where mum drives a car for a daughter (genuinely disabled) but uses the car like it’s her car including taking grandkids to school.
The solution includes cracking down where the PIP award is for someone who rarely goes out. Maybe a tracker to ensure car only gets used for the right person?
The majority of customers are either claimant drivers or close family of a claimant who can’t/wont drive but who does use the car ‘normally’. It’s how Motability can accommodate the rest where there’s a genuine need and prevent the multiple instances of Mickey taking.
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