Premium car brands will no longer be available via Motobility – a programme that helps disabled people in the UK lease vehicles using their government benefits.
Car makers such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are being “removed immediately”, Motability Operations confirmed on Monday evening (24 November).
The part-taxpayer-funded scheme is being revised to focus on cars that “meet disabled peoples’ needs and represent value and purpose”. Such cars, which are individually adapted, include the Renault Clio, Dacia Jogger and Citroën ë-C3.
The news comes just weeks after chancellor Rachel Reeves vowed to axe luxury cars from the programme, in an effort to save £1 billion a year, according to reports.
This cost-saving also includes removing VAT exemptions – something that Motability users have warned will result in “severe” consequences for them.
Motability Operations buys cars and leases them to people with a qualifying disability allowance of £75.75 per week.
The package includes road tax, servicing, insurance, breakdown cover and tyre and windscreen repair. Some cars also need adapting to support individual users' needs.
Motability has become a major player in the UK car market since its 1977 foundation and now the charity has a fleet of more than 800,000 cars.
As it removes premium car brands from its stable, Motability Operations will look to buy more British-made vehicles – and has promised that half of its fleet will be so by 2035.
These will include cars from Nissan, Mini and Toyota and van-based Vauxhall MPVs. The Sunderland-built Nissan Juke, for example, is currently one of the most popular vehicles on the scheme.
This, said Motability Operations CEO Andrew Miller, will “do even more to support the economy, and our ambitious commitment should put British car manufacturing into top gear”.
Reeves said that “backing British car manufacturing will support thousands of well-paid, skilled jobs”.
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Big rip off of a charity who buy cars very cheap, probably without paying VAT, and then lease them at a minium £310 a month, a C3 with a 10k miles a year limit costs the same commercially and bear in mind Motobility are meant to be a charity.
Oh don't get me started on how they sell their secondhand cars, an even bigger scandal.
...a C3 with a 10k miles a year limit costs the same commercially
I don't know the mobility scheme, but it's my understanding the payment also covers insurance, servicing and maintenance etc. Did you factor that in when comparing prices?
Good riddance! Unbelievable that the taxpayer subsidised expensive cars for years. I get it you need help to move around, but can't you move around in a Citroen? I would have said Dacia but ok, it should have 5 NCAP stars.Most working families can't afford a Mercedes but they pay for this.Besides, Mercedes and BMWs are (usually) rear wheel drive, thus having less internal space. How does that help a disabled person?
Vile and stupid, pandering to the hateful folk who want to punch down on those worse off than themselves.
This just says if youre disabled you dont deserve anything beyond the bare minimum ,which is abhorrent.
PIP pays a standard rate, if someone chooses a 'premium' car, theyre topping up the cost so no cost to the tax payer.
Also, 'premium' models often have better residuals than 'lesser' ones, so the lease cost to the tax payer is less.
It's a spat in the face for working families. If you need help to move about, the welfare system can provide you with that. If you can afford a Mercedes, you don't need taxpayers' help. It's not that you don't deserve it, it's that you shouldn't get it on the back of those who work hard and still can't afford one.
The benefits system is not intended to support a luxury life. It's intended to provide the means of living for those who don't have them.
You might as well travel by helicopter and claim benefits because you're disabled... Or, to quote you, you're worse off.
Why don't you pay for your premium car and enjoy the better residuals?
Typical fantasy of being hard done by compared to others response.
Disabilities have all kinds of consequential impacts based on a society not designed to be fully inclusive.
PIP is meant to go someway into levelling that up. In MANY cases it allows people with disabilities to work, where there wouldnt be able to without, thus, if you want to be callous and financial about it, reduces their burden to the tax payer, and pay into the tax system. So why should they not use some of those wages to upspec the car that enables them to do so.
You also chose to ignore the point that 'premium' cars often have better residuals so therefore cost less on a lease than the 'cheap' carsa you believe they should be restricted to.
They do/did pay for it!! Thats the whole point!
Its a flat rate. So in your warped logic, many are over paying for their (more suitably specced for your requirements) cars and should be due a refund.
The system isnt ideal, as mentioned by others, but its not being exploited by people driving 'overly luxurious' cars.
If you're outraged at how unfair it is people with disabilities get to use their benefits to run a car, I genuinely hope you or none of your loved ones ever have a disability and experience how really unfair life and the world can be.