On motability, one discrepancy of ideology that amuses me is that many on the left see inequality in incomes as an issue, but fail to see that inequalities provided by entitlements can be incredibly gauling.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
That's what comes of working in a Bentley Garage...
Ha! "The BBC does not comment on leaked documents" - BBC R4
Is that related to their investigation of the programme where they accused Trump of inciting a riot?
Have we seen any blow by blow analysis about this yet from anywhere authoritative?
We had the Telegraph this morning, and GBN asserting the allegations as sins of commission on the part of the BBC.
To me it's still actually about Trump inciting a riot, and the Congress members and their staff who were placed at risk, and the police who died.
I have not seen anything yet about measures taken by the BBC in response to the report, or if there weren't any.
(Though I've been noting that Panorama and the BBC are both not what it used to be in terms of quality journalism for the best part of 2 decades - I expect like many here.)
Mobility cars: can the government not just put out a tender process for car manufacturers that meet a range of mobility requirements and create a short-list of [5] cars which are eligible to be purchased under Mobility and at an agreed price centrally negotiated by the government?
Use government purchasing power to our advantage to reduce costs.
We have an ex-motability adapted Peugeot Partner van that has a ramp and wheelchair clamps for carting elderly parents around. Privately purchased, of course.
It has a really nasty automatic gearbox and you really wouldn't want to use it for very much other than its intended purpose.
That's what I think of as a mobility vehicle. Not a flash BMW.
Yeah 'cos disabled people should know their place. And it's not in the sort of cars nice people like us drive around in.
Honestly, the sheer smallmindedness being exhibited on this place is depressing.
KNOW THIS:
Motability leasers give up a benefit which is rightly theirs, plus they often pay a one-off non-refundable deposit, to lease a car. How dare they expect that to be like normal cars that normal people drive around in?
Why so generous @Flatlander? - 5 car options is far too much. Just go back to one model like the Invacar so that we can all distiguish disabled drivers clearly.
I earn a very good salary and have never bought a car newer than than 7-years old.
The average age of cars in the UK is 9-years old.
The idea that all "normal" people drive around in news cars is laughable.
It's a choice. I earn a much better salary than my neighbours but don't have a new BMW like they do. But they never go on holiday, don't eat out. I also really enjoy looking at my ISA balance.
I don't know why disabled people should be restricted to old cars, particularly when they depend on them so much and often don't have as many options for spending their cash. I think Ben's posts have been perfectly reasonable.
I agree it's a choice - I could have prioritised a new car but chose not to.
The issue is the mobility scheme only gives the subsidy where people buy new cars. And with the tax exemption proportional to the car cost, the monetary discount of the scheme encourages more expensive, newer cars.
No it doesn't it allows richer people who qualify for PIP to potentially get slightly better cars than they otherwise might but to do that BMW will be deducting an awful large amount off the list price to so put the i4 into the lease model. Because £8000 + PIP doesn't cover the £35,000 difference between £60,000 new and £20,000 at 3 years old.
Which tells me that BMW are knocking an awful lot off the car to sell a few to Motobility..
As for leasing second hand cars - rather you than me why would you take the maintenance risk on a vehicle you don't own..
They’re also not paying £10k in VAT on the £60k list price, which makes a massive difference to the lease cost.
Car used for disabled people to get around - it's VAT exempt in a way that would be utterly insane to remove politically..
Do we have any stats on the average list price of a motability car?
What would that tell you - remember Motobility cars are often models / versions that the manufacturer wants to shift excess stock of..
OK, the average lease price then...
The average lease price is probably close to £333pm which is the amount of PIP a leaser gives up. The sort of cars being complained about on here (Audi, BMW etc) will cost a lot more than that because they require substantial one-off up-front payments but the majority are little Kias and Toyotas with zero up-front... because most cant afford an up-front payment anyway.
I've tried to find the statistics but haven't got very far, although it does seem that 90% of motability cars are unmodified, which I wouldn't have expected. I'm not sure that was the original intention.
Why wouldn't it be the intention. The point of motobility is to allow disabled people to get from A to B and a person with one bad leg can drive an automatic car without much difficulty...
And if the carer is driving the car there is zero need for it to be modified.
Everyone needs vehicles to get from A to B, but most of us have to drive either an old vehicle or a heavily taxed vehicle, and do so out of post-tax income.
I can't get to work without driving, yet I don't get a subsidy to fund a car, nor do I get to avoid tax.
Why does someone with one bad leg need an untaxed vehicle that is subsidised to get about? Why can't they buy their own vehicle, paying the same taxes, from the same wages, as everyone else does?
Taxes should be as low as possible, but paid by everyone at the same rate.
Person is disabled enough to get PIP to allow them to work.
Person spends that PIP money on a car to allow them to get from A to B in a stress free way,
I'm at a loss as to where there are some people on here annoyed that others are driving a better car than them when it's just a combination of something we give people to allow them to work rather than being unemployed attached to a well run scheme that provides cars to people cheaply.
Funding essentials, like cars, is what wages are there for. If the person is able to work, then why do we need to pay for them to get a car, why can't it come from their wages?
I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with that person spending their money on a car.
What I am not OK with is going to work to fund my own car, while funding someone else's car too, from my wages.
What I am not OK with is paying draconianly high tax rates on my car, while someone else's car is completely untaxed.
It is not fair.
Taxes should be low and equally applied.
Taxes are equally applied but benefits aren't
Because back in the 50's we discovered that paying disabled people a bit of money that allowed them to work was cheaper than paying disabled people to sit at home not working and also raised additional tax revenue...
Still don't understand why we dont pay an amount - either standard or based on level of disability rather than make it VAT exempt. The current set up is hugely regressive, discourages other modes of transport and creates resentment.
We do.
There is then a charity that has discovered if you combine a lot of people's PIP payments you can purchase cars very cheaply and lease them to disabled people in return for their PIP payments.
Then you have some people who are richer and can afford to pay a premium up front for their cars and there are manufacturers who are happy to sell expensive cars at a discount to the scheme at a price that when combined with the premium makes the economics work out.
And once again the VAT exemption comes because these cars are disability aids which are VAT exempt because disability aids when sold for the purpose of aiding the disabled are VAT exempt.
And it ends up with someone who is entitled to PIP but holds down a good job leasing a £165k car but VAT free (£30k in VAT), so a massive reduction in the lease cost.
Better to either put a limit on an unmodified car at say £40k, limit it to British-made cars (which should be blindingly obvious!) or simply scrap the VAT exemption and raise the PIP to compensate.
This must be costing the Treasury billions, given that one in six new cars sold now come under this scheme.
Who is leasing a £165k car - because I would love to see the example of that...
There doesn’t appear to be an upper value on the car allowed through the scheme.
You can only purchase a car that is within the scheme and the maximum premium is £8000 which is why you end up with end of run i4s being added to it as BMW clear out the last remaining prebuilt cars in stock
But you've just done a leave attempt of posting false inaccurate figures to try and prove a point and I happily will remind you of that down the line...
...I would need bookshelves along every wall in my house if the books on my Kindle were physically in the house...
I'm not seeing the problem. How long have you had this perverse need to see your walls?...
I want space to be able to enter some of the rooms. Seriously we have bookshelves that are triple stacked and I've bought about 2 physical books in the last 8 years...
Get rid of all the books that you know that nobody in the house will ever read again.
Done that already this year - but all I am doing is removing my books which Mrs Eek then instantly fills up again.
I still need to sell a lot of my old Dr Who books which are quite valuable.
My old Target ones are in my sister's attic. I don't think I'd get much for them, given their condition. They were well-thumbed
On motability, one discrepancy of ideology that amuses me is that many on the left see inequality in incomes as an issue, but fail to see that inequalities provided by entitlements can be incredibly gauling.
For reference, I have a family member who is a mechanic. Him and his mates constantly see customers walking off with cars that they themselves couldn't afford to drive....
The politics of envy?
Rachel Reeves hates Motability customers who can afford the upgrade to a Mercedes Benz MLA or a BMW M5.
Comments
We had the Telegraph this morning, and GBN asserting the allegations as sins of commission on the part of the BBC.
To me it's still actually about Trump inciting a riot, and the Congress members and their staff who were placed at risk, and the police who died.
I have not seen anything yet about measures taken by the BBC in response to the report, or if there weren't any.
(Though I've been noting that Panorama and the BBC are both not what it used to be in terms of quality journalism for the best part of 2 decades - I expect like many here.)
You can only purchase a car that is within the scheme and the maximum premium is £8000 which is why you end up with end of run i4s being added to it as BMW clear out the last remaining prebuilt cars in stock
But you've just done a leave attempt of posting false inaccurate figures to try and prove a point and I happily will remind you of that down the line...
Rachel Reeves hates Motability customers who can afford the upgrade to a Mercedes Benz MLA or a BMW M5.