Granted, but it would be worthwhile to see if the costs of administering the means test result in an overall saving.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Certainly - if paying it to everyone is genuinely cheaper then that option should be taken, though given the amounts involved I'd doubt it would be. Winter fuel payment probably can't economically have its own means test but it is easy enough to tag it onto some other benefit, they just probably picked the wrong one.
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I think I'd either agree with that or go with the idea that the VAT exemption should only be on the price of a suitable basic vehicle (e.g. Citroen Berlingo, Dacia Jogger etc) and any upgrade should be at full market price with full VAT, higher rate of VED, any difference in insurance costs etc still applying.
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I do think any necessary medical devices to achieve as close to the level of pedestrian mobility as an able bodied person as reasonably possible should be provided free of charge via NHS funding, whatever they happen to be. If someone can't use a manual wheelchair effectively then that would be an electric one, and it'd include stuff like prosthetics and the likes. I'm not sure I would have that as some sort of separate benefit, it should be simply prescribed by the relevant doctor.
If that's part of PIP it really shouldn't be in my eyes.
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Yorkshire09876
Member
Nobody is expecting urban levels of public transport, but what currently exists is in many cases non-existent or not really usable (last bus from nearest large town leaves before many people finish work, etc).
For many reasons, the 'just move to a town' answer is often not a realistic option.
I am sure that there are many places that have a last bus that leaves from the large town before many people finish work, especially if that many includes those finishing at retail parks and distribution warehouses at 20h00 and 22h00/23h00. But you can't live in the vast majority of villages and expect to do jobs finishing at those times travelling by public transport. @Bletchleyite is right, you'll have to move to town, however unrealistic that may be.
I can only speak for the my county of residence - the villages are generally dripping with affluence, with a few exceptions, and a few dwellings of deprivation. Bus passengers away from the interurban routes are few - mainly schoolchildren, and ENCTS holders in the middle of the day. Aside from a few hamlets and remote small villages, every village has a bus (or rail) service Monday to Saturday with a bus departure available from a large town around 17h30-18h00. Those that don't have this generally fall in the 'very affluent' category, although I am sure you could point to an odd example. Throwing money at evening services for these places (which mostly lost them 50 years ago or more) would be subsidising rural living to an unsustainable level.
Yorkshire09876
Member
I'm not talking about people working late hours. There are many cases where the last bus from the nearest large town leaves at before 6pm (in some cases even before 5.30) - that is of no use even for many people working standard hours.
As regards villages 'dripping with affluence' - which part of the country are you in? That is by no means a universal situation.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
In the end if you want to live somewhere like that you need a car. If that car is an EV and is driven to a suitable railhead or bus P&R then it isn't causing any harm, indeed far less than running a stinking old diesel bus around all day with nobody on it. If you choose not to drive or can't drive for medical reasons, you need to consider where you choose to live and possibly move.
The most you can really justify for very rural places that aren't near a road that has a bus service anyway is a once a week shopper's return journey, really, so nobody is stuck unable to obtain basic food etc. People do need to take a bit of responsibility for their own choices.
There isn't infinite money, and providing high quality public transport service to places like this is not a good use of public funds.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
I hardly think providing a public subsidy for rich people to buy luxury cars is an incentive for hard work etc.
The other option is for them to buy and run a car - at their own expense unless they qualify for Motablity.
We might be talking at cross purposes but there is a medical assessment as part of PIP. It's carried out (at great expense) by contractors on behalf of the DWP.
Broadly the claim process is phone up to start a claim, be sent a claim form which will ask you to supply information about your conditions and will specifically ask how you manage various activities (cooking, toileting, dressing, etc), an assessment is then arranged (telephone usually but sometimes video or face to face) and a report produced which is reviewed by the DWP and a decision made (which usually rubber stamps the report).
It's not a quick nor easy process and medical evidence and an assessment is carried out.
There are some cases where the assessment might be done on the papers (for very serious cases with lots of documentary evidence) or if you're terminally ill the assessment can be skipped entirely. But the vast majority of claims will be assessed.
The quality of those assessments obviously can be very very variable. But they do happen.
It was Disability Living Allowance (which PIP replaced for working age people in 2013) that doesn't have assessments generally (and still doesn't for children aged under 16). Attendance Allowance (for pensioners) is similar with almost never any assessment.
Yes that's another reason why I'm not convinced that a means test is fair or sensible for PIP.
Sticking with our merchant banker, what if they have a stroke one day and cannot do their high paying job anymore? Likely if they've been successful they've got plenty of assets that would block them from a means test but I don't see why they shouldn't get PIP now seeing as they've paid plenty into the system and now need some help.
In my county of residence, there are very few places with a last bus before 17h40 from a large town - bus timetables are a compromise especially on infrequent routes when the previous bus was at 15h40 for schoolchildren, whilst many offices close at 17h00, the few shops that are left at 17h30 or 18h00. On those routes where the last bus is 18h10/18h15 it is pretty much empty.
I did not say 'dripping with affluence' is a universal situation, and, in my county of residence (Midlands) generally those places that have any substantial deprivation will usually have better bus services than those that don't, because there will be substantially greater numbers travelling by bus. Very, very few people travelling to villages in the evenings though.
I'm not interested in allowing topping up. If someone wants a more luxurious vehicle, they shouldn't get the VAT/IPT benefit at all.
As has been alluded to earlier, feeding the second hand market is a useful side benefit, and that's more useful to more people with basic cars than with luxury cars.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
It's not semantics. PIP and Attendance Allowance, and DLA before it, is very deliberately paid based on how a disability or health condition affects a claimant, rather than being paid based on a prescriptive list of disabilities.
This is actually more restrictive than it would be if you simply went off medical diagnoses. Someone with, for instance, a leg amputation would only get PIP if they couldn't walk using normal aids such as prosthetic limbs.
The Conservatives didn't remove medical assessments from PIP. The DWP still conduct medical assessments for PIP claimants just as they always did for DLA and Attendance Allowance claimants. These assessments can be as frequent as every 9-12 months.
This is the problem with any conversation about the welfare benefit system. Most people don't know how it works because it doesn't affect them, and so people become mistaken in their understanding. People who know better, such as the current Labour government's politicians, are happy to let people continue with their mistaken beliefs because it suits their 'scrounger' narrative.
Why?
Motability take your higher rate PIP mobility, which is about £77 a week, and assess this against the expected finance costs, maintenance costs, and depreciation of the vehicle. If the maintenance costs and depreciation of the vehicle are higher than the PIP entitlement, you have to pay an upfront advance payment. This can be up to £7,999. If they are lower than the PIP entitlement, you get to keep some of your PIP.
You're only leasing the vehicle and, at the end of the lease, Motability will sell it. Higher-spec cars have a higher initial cost price but also have a higher resale value. The actual cost to Motability of a higher-spec car may well not be any different to a lower-spec car.
I get that it feels counter-intuitive, but the actual cost of a higher-spec car is often no different to the actual cost of a lower-spec car. You also regularly see this with commercial PCP deals. You're only paying for the depreciation and the depreciation on, say, an Audi Q4 will often not be significantly different to the depreciation on, say, a Dacia Sandero Stepway.
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There was a DWP assessment for DLA and AA. They could decide it purely on the medical paperwork but, in most cases, they did not. They took their own assessment which, as you say, was of variable quality.
I don't miss preparing DLA appeal submissions.
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What do you mean by 'topping up'? What do you define as a basic vehicle and what do you define as a luxury vehicle? Do you go off the brand, do you go off the spec level? Do you go off the depreciation cost? Maintenance cost? How do you decide?
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Perhaps it was different for adult DLA (it was literally being phased out as I got into this work, I think I saw one adult DLA form completed whilst shadowing an experienced adviser but by the time I was let loose it was PIP) but AA and child DLA are definitely being decided on the papers almost universally. Can't recall ever hearing someone being called for a telephone, face to face or video assessment with a healthcare professional. Obviously the DWP are doing an assessment(!) but it's much more internal than getting rubbish Maximus or Crapita assessors on the case like they do for PIP.
Aye PIP appeal submissions aren't much fun either! A bit easier in that there's more of a specific frame work I suppose due to the activities and descriptors being prescribed but still not exactly a barrel of laughs. "Yes I know that your hands are so riddled with arthritis it's a struggle to even sign your name on the form but we're still going to have to appeal because they decided you can prepare food for yourself unaided" etc etc.
Yorkshire09876
Member
So basically, if you live in London (and to a lesser extent other larger cities) it's fine for £X per head of population to be spent on public transport. If you live somewhere else, you pay the same in tax and get little or nothing, because little is spent on public transport, and what little there is goes to the larger towns in the region. And you'll be grateful for it!
If the government actually wants to reduce car use, it needs to provide usable public transport. Basically your argument is that unless someone is wealthy, they have no right to live in a rural area.
It's not even just 'very rural' places either. There are plenty of small towns which have no practically usable (for people in normal jobs) bus service to the nearest large town.
But if you spent that £x per head on public transport for a village of say 20 people, there's a good chance it won't even be enough for a once in each direction per day bus service.
I think almost everybody would agree with this. The question is where the line is drawn.
Not convinced that's the argument either. If you want to rely on public transport, you have to choose to live somewhere which either has existing public transport links, or has the potential demand for it.
My father in law lives in a row of 3 houses. They are a few miles from a B road, which connects a few small villages. The cost of running a bus service there, likely for zero passengers a lot of the time, would be massive compared to the benefit realised. If he wanted to work in town, even he would agree that he either needs to drive in or move somewhere else. 2x£3 bus fares from him isn't going to sustain a public bus service, not even a minibus.
Yes and I certainly agree that some towns and villages should be better connected. The village my mum lives in in north Wales has no bus that would get you to the nearest town before 9am, and no bus returning from the nearest town after 5pm. In fact you'd have to work roughly 10:00-14:30 in the nearest town to use the bus service for commuting. But her village alone has 1600 residents, and the villages passed by the bus service number tens of thousands, many of whom are working age. If they ran a 'commuter' time service I reckon people would use it. I would certainly use it to get to the railway station if I haven't driven there, rather than a somewhat risky cycle ride or shelling out for a taxi.
The issue is drawing the line really. And in some cases services have been withdrawn because people weren't using them because they have cars. To drive that culture change, you need not only the carrot (a bus service), but also the stick (some disincentive to drive). In a lot of these cases you can't have one without the other else it won't work.
Egg Centric
Established Member
While I don't have a problem with motability covering higher value cars there is a legitimate argument against it at present and that is the VAT free element*. The more expensive the car, the higher the discount from the VAT exemption.
The solution to me is to either get rid of the VAT exemption or to cap it. Keep it for the cost of modifying the car of course (if necessary - it usually isn't).
*Technically the VAT exemption has nothing to do with motability per se, but it's part of "the system".
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Eligibility for the Motability scheme is limited to people who have significant mobility problems which mean that they need a car. I don’t really understand what the issue is.
Adapted vehicles are subject to a separate VAT exemption.
It’s also worth noting that, for leases where there is no opportunity to buy the vehicle, the monthly rental payment is what is subject to VAT, not the book price of the car. For all Motability cars, the monthly lease is paid by the PIP, for most cars it is 100% of the PIP mobility component. All that removing the VAT will do is give people an immediate 20% cut on the benefit they receive.
Rachel Reeves has long wanted to do this because she seems to subscribe to the ‘scroungers versus strivers’ nonsense. A woman who allegedly fraudulently obtained electronic equipment from her employer lecturing us about a work ethic. Hmm.
It’s also interesting that people don’t get so exercised about commercial vehicles being eligible for a 100% VAT rebate. This includes dual purpose vehicles. You know those huge luxury pickup trucks, or the souped-up Transit Custom Sport vans, owned by all the tradies? They’re treated as commercial vehicles. Buy it “for your business” and you get the VAT back in full.
But woe betide a disabled person getting a Dacia Duster.
Egg Centric
Established Member
It's straightforward, no? If you buy a Dacia Duster using the VAT exemption, at £18k, that's £3.6k in VAT saved. If you buy an S Class using the VAT exemption, that's £20k in VAT saved. No one "needs" an S class*. I have no problem whatsoever with people putting their PIP towards better cars if they can afford them. But I don't see any reason whatsoever for huge VAT savings over everyone else. The need, as you say, is for a car. Not a luxury one.
*Figures and models are for illustration purposes
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
It’s not though. Because of the way Motability leases are structured, any VAT would be charged on the weekly rental payment and any advance payment, not the book price of the car. This is because the all-inclusive nature of the rental together with the lack of an option to buy means it is treated as the purchase of a service not a good.
The rental payment for a “luxury” car often isn’t much more than the rental payment for a basic car. A “luxury” car costs more to buy and maintain and insure but also has a higher resale value.
For just about all cars under Motability the rental payment is 100% of the PIP mobility component. The difference is the amount of the upfront payment. All that adding VAT does is cut the value of the benefit by 20%. More people will be pushed into advance payments even for basic cars.
Ironically, the financial impact would actually be proportionally worse for people who are leasing the cheapest cars.
Egg Centric
Established Member
Ok - I have misunderstood exactly how it works, and therefore the relative importance of the VAT exemption. It still doesn't seem right though, given the bolded points. From a quick look on the site the advance payment can be anything from 0 to £8k which I assume means 2k of VAT saved. I don't see the justification for that extra £2k "free" if it's not necessary?
Falcon1200
Established Member
The issue with rural public transport is surely a vicious circle; Where its provision is poor or non-existent, most people will have a car, or access to one, and therefore public transport is poor or non-existent. That is certainly the case in the next village along from me, Uplawmoor, which did have trains until the 1960s but now has a really poor bus service (which was made even worse than it was in a recent operator and timetable change). Who is going to rely on a two-hourly bus service which runs 6 times a day with the last departure from Uplawmoor at 1540?
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
VAT is a very complicated tax and I’m sure there’s more to it than my limited understanding. But my understanding of the general principle is that if you buy a car, even on finance, you pay VAT on the purchase price, whereas if you simply lease it you pay VAT on the lease payment.
This is a crucial point: people leasing through Motability don’t own the car and will never own the car. This is different to when you take out a HP or PCP finance agreement with a dealer, where you will eventually own the car. I’m actually surprised more of the sorts of people who get a new car every 2-3 years don’t lease, as it’d likely be cheaper.
As for fairness, personally I prefer having to pay the VAT rather than be unwell enough to qualify for PIP.
My issue with applying VAT to Motability is that it will disproportionately affect the poorest disabled people. If you currently take one of the cheaper cars- full PIP mobility payment but no advance payment- then if they start charging VAT on the monthly lease these people will be looking at having to somehow find about £2,750 as an advance payment. This is because the PIP payment will now only cover about 80% of the weekly cost, and any excess of the PIP payment has to be paid upfront in advance. How will they find that?
I’d agree that someone who can afford to drop eight grand on an advance payment will probably be able to afford more. But they also have more choices. Motability already isn’t always the cheapest way of getting a car; as I said upthread, a family member uses their PIP mobility to pay for a commercial PCP finance agreement as it was cheaper.
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To an extent.
But it does have a dose of realism in it.
The last village I lived in had public buses. But every few weeks I was taking a 6am flight to Ireland. I cannot expect the bus company to run a service from my village at 3am (which is probably when it would need to leave to get me to my connecting bus on time to get to the airport on time etc) just because they will get one passenger every say four weeks. The council certainly wouldn't subsidise it.
I owned a car, and I would drive to the park and ride and get an airport bus from there instead. This is a solid compromise, and pragmatic.
My issue was, as this was in Scotland where we don't have the £3 bus fare cap, that given I had a car, driving was almost always cheaper and more convenient than taking public transport. A return ticket to town on the bus was £9, but the fuel cost for me driving was around £1.70. I already own the car so the capital cost, MOT, VED, insurance, etc is already factored in. There is added wear from driving so maybe call it £2 but that's still less than a third of the price. Add in a second, third, fourth passenger and it becomes a no brainer.
To encourage car owners to take public transport requires both affordable fares and reliable service on a useful timetable.
In some places the cost benefit analysis doesn't check out for doing this given people who already have cars will prefer the cost and convenience of just driving instead.
Yes quite. I've won appeals before and the person has been entitled to a £15k one off backdated payment (because it's taken so long to get to an appeal and get a decision) and initially you think: "Wow! Wish I had £15k coming to me!" but then you realise that they're only getting £15k because their sciatic pain is so bad that they can't walk more than 20m in one go before having to stop due to pain (evening using a walking stick), they can't get out of the shower over the bath anymore so have had to have a wet room fitted, they can't make meals anymore in the kitchen because they're in so much agony they can't stand long enough to cook things for themselves, etc etc. I'd rather have my health actually than the money and any VAT exemptions that might apply if they got a mobility car.
That’s what happened here - the area is relatively affluent and the 130 bus service has gone from half hourly in 2008 and before to places I might want to go to to hourly to places I don’t want to go to. Other than Macclesfield Hospital perhaps when I can no longer drive and have a free pass, but I will probably pay for a taxi.
The bus companies messed around with the services also, and couldn’t deliver on the published timetables.
My husband used to get the bus to work but waiting 60 minutes for a supposedly half hourly service most evenings to get home killed that.
The council has tried to do something at the eleventh hour, and doubtless some people will benefit, so I don’t begrudge paying for this indirectly, but I’m unlikely ever to use local bus services again. They now only get used by people who have no choice; in the past I found them a useful option.
Yorkshire09876
Member
The approach of the government (and previous ones) is all stick and no carrot. Yet again they are looking at increasing costs of car ownership / use, but they do little or nothing to provide a viable alternative in many areas. Of course it doesn't affect most of the Westminster bubble as London has very good public transport anyway.
Falcon1200
Established Member
In the example I quoted, Uplawmoor, it is difficult to see what the Government (SNP in this case of course, not Labour) could really do. It would seem that even the previous poor bus service was not considered viable, or at least worthy of subsidy, and the far more useful option of re-extending the railway from Neilston is never going to happen, even in Scotland!
Yorkshire09876
Member
They need to make buses and trains actually attractive if they want people to use them - trying to price them out of cars isn't going to work when there is no viable alternative. Buses have a reputation now for being crap (apart from in London) and it's mostly only the young and the old who use them. It won't be easy to shift that perception, but it's certainly not going to change if the level of services don't improve.
And trains - who would voluntarily choose to go a long distance on a wedged Voyager if they could avoid it, to give one example? This is something which the government could definitely improve on, and people would use it as trains don't have the stigma which buses do. But the problem is ignored, as usual.
Vicious circle or not, the bus service provision cut has always lagged far behind the evaporation of passengers. In all but the most deprived areas, the decline started around 1955 but any major quantitive adjustment to schedules did not occur until the early 1970s. I should imagine the last bus from Uplawmoor is at 15h40 because any later journeys were so poorly patronised that they could not be afforded any longer. Government (local or central) is not going to spend buckets of money on services that are only going to be used once in a while. The taxi industry provides for that kind of demand, at a price that reflects the cost of providing it (sort of).
DarloRich
Veteran Member
I saw this interview: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8jrw21lx0xo with a disabled person regarding Motability. The gist was "I am disabled, why cant I drive the car I want"?
I can hear 90% of the people I know saying: because I am paying for it. I have to work really hard just to stay close to afloat and cant have a fancy car. Why should you? If you want a fancy car you should pay for it. That may be misguided and misunderstand how the scheme works but is a common stance. It is, frankly, a sentiment I have some sympathy with.
Personally, I have no problem with a scheme to help disabled people have improved mobility and access to work via adapted vehicles (if required) that we pay for (I would pay for it all!) but it should be basic and cheap models/vehicles only.
If you want a fancy BMW then you pay for all of it from your own pocket. We will give you a Kia, adapted to your needs, free. That doesn't seem unfair to me.
(BTW - I am not suggesting we take Lee Andersons approach and bring back Invalid carriages!)
I can hear 90% of the people I know saying: because I am paying for it. I have to work really hard just to stay close to afloat and cant have a fancy car. Why should you? If you want a fancy car you should pay for it. That may be misguided and misunderstand how the scheme works but is a common stance. It is, frankly, a sentiment I have some sympathy with.
Personally, I have no problem with a scheme to help disabled people have improved mobility and access to work via adapted vehicles (if required) that we pay for (I would pay for it all!) but it should be basic and cheap models/vehicles only.
If you want a fancy BMW then you pay for all of it from your own pocket. We will give you a Kia, adapted to your needs, free. That doesn't seem unfair to me.
(BTW - I am not suggesting we take Lee Andersons approach and bring back Invalid carriages!)
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
This isn't true though. Look at the last budget. Fuel duty remained the same. But the £2 bus fare cap, which was scheduled to end at the end of 2024, was replaced with a £3 bus fare cap.
Fuel prices have remained remarkably static. In 2024 the average price for a litre of unleaded was 141p. In 2012 it was 136p. However 136p in 2012 would now be worth 197p. So, in real terms, petrol now is about 50p a litre cheaper than it was 12 years ago.