My local BMW dealer once told me the only thing keeping his business afloat was knocking out 1-series hatchbacks on the Motability scheme.
That was 14 years ago, in the wake of the financial crash. I wrote about it here. Even then I was astonished to learn that the government was leasing flash German cars for people on disability benefits.
Today, Motability is responsible for a staggering one in five of all new cars sold in Britain. Last year a record 815,000 people took advantage of the scheme, an increase of 170,000.
Since Covid, the number of people claiming to be disabled has gone through the roof and the definition of ‘disability’ has been stretched to breaking point.
Even the obese and those allegedly suffering from anxiety are eligible. I’ve heard of Money For Nothing And Your Chips For Free but this is ridiculous.
Feeling a bit grumpy? You can drive away in a brand new £50,000 Mercedes coupe, courtesy of the mug British taxpayer. That should cheer you up. Cue Janis Joplin.
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?
No problem, madam. Sign here. In exchange for a modest down-payment and portion of your Personal Independence Payments (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance you’re good to go.
Motability is responsible for one in five cars sold in Britain, with 815,000 people using the scheme last year
The Mail’s Glen Keogh and Sam Greenhill exposed the scale of abuse in a brilliant special report on Saturday, demonstrating how easy it has become to cheat the system.
A body-builder who claimed he was too weak to grip a knife and fork and couldn’t move more than a few yards without a wheelchair was caught lifting weights at a gym and pulling his car across the parking lot with a rope attached to the tow bar. He’d uploaded the video on Instagram.
A notorious ‘dine and dash’ couple, who fled restaurants without paying, were using their Motability motor as a getaway car. You couldn’t make it up.
Sadly, none of this surprised me. When I wrote about my conversation with the BMW dealer 14 years ago, I heard from dozens of readers with tales of how the scheme was being exploited.
I learned about ballroom dancers turning up in Motability cars; and an estate in South London where most people were unemployed yet managed to swan around in brand-new Nissan Qashqais. In Northern Ireland, apparently, Motability cars were being used as minicabs.
My favourite was the part-time Elvis impersonator who pretended to be disabled and lugged his gear from gig to gig in a subsidised Renault Kangoo.
It’s one for the money, two for the show, call Motability go, cat, go.
At the time, the new Conservative/Liberal Coalition government was said to be increasingly concerned at the ease with which people could qualify. But they did nothing.
Andrew Miller, the CEO of Motability Operations which delivers the Motability scheme
Even 14 years ago, the parents of a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were eligible. Why should someone whose kid can’t sit still in class get a free car?
Since then, it’s become even easier. Mental Elf Ishoos are impossible to prove one way or the other. Three million people claim they are too sick to work, many with anxiety. Presumably they all qualify for a gratis Beamer, too. And why should you get a free car simply because you’re fat?
In such cases, GPs and the Department for Work and Pensions appear to take the line of least resistance. Motability’s customer base grew almost 15 per cent last year ‘thanks to a growth in the eligible base of recipients’.
It’s not just ADHD, either. Thirty-five per cent of people who claimed Personal Independence Payments for ‘bedwetting’ were successful. Talk about taking the proverbial.
So were 66 per cent who claimed for agoraphobia, 51 per cent for depression, and 54 per cent said to be suffering from Munchausen syndrome – a psychological condition which involves pretending to be ill.
But you don’t have to be ‘disabled’ to benefit. Every vehicle comes with free road tax, breakdown cover and insurance for three named drivers. So friends and family of the claimant are entitled to drive the car, too.
There are TikTok videos on the internet demonstrating how simple it is to game the system. One features a young man in a red balaclava – he looks like an Isis terrorist – boasting about how he managed to get a £30,000 Fiat sports car.
In another, the mother of an autistic four-year-old daughter shows off her shiny new Skoda Kodiaq so she can be ‘driven around in style’.
Motability is a private company, but receives the lion’s share of its income from the taxpayer. It also keeps the cash when the cars are sold at the end of a three-year lease.
Why do claimants need a new car every three years? I had my last car for 12 and only got rid of it because it was a diesel and I refused to pay Genghis Khan’s extortionate Ulez charge every time I took it out of the garage.
While the country is drowning in debt, Motability is sitting on a £4 billion cash pile. Its annual turnover is £7 billion. The chief executive is paid £750,000 a year. His predecessor got a mind-blowing £1.7 million. Nice work if you can get it.
Look, I’m not opposed to the genuinely disabled being given help to get around, even a free car. The scheme was introduced in 1977 to replace those ghastly three-wheeled invalid carriages to which the disabled had been consigned up until then. Think Del Boy’s van with a canvas roof.
My old neighbour Miss Davey, who was crippled by polio as a child, drove a modified Daf 33, with Variomatic transmission. No one could begrudge the essential mobility, dignity and independence it bestowed upon her.
But Motability was never designed to buy 50-grand Mercs for bedwetting boy racers in balaclavas with imaginary mental illnesses or be overseen by a boss on three-quarters of a million a year.
Nor was it ever envisaged that one in every five – repeat one in five – of all new cars bought in Britain would be paid for by the taxpayer.
It was revealed that more than a million foreign nationals are receiving benefits in Britain, costing us £7.5billion a year. Are we going to buy them all a new motor, too?
The Mail also reported that one-in-four Gen Z youngsters are considering giving up work for good and living on benefits because of, you guessed, Mental Elf Ishoos. How long before they’re all swanning round in a BMW 1-series?
Surkeir Starmer admits that the welfare system is out of control and the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is due to announce money-saving reforms, despite fervent opposition from the Labour Left. Let’s hope she keeps her nerve.
She should start by taking an axe to the scandalous abuse of the hideously expensive Motability scheme.
Parp, parp!
