Many disabled people would be trapped in their homes without their own transport
Labour is determined to make disabled people pay for problems they did not cause. Alongside its racist scapegoating of refugees, the government is coming for disabled people once again.
With the autumn budget approaching, chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to slash £1 billion from the budget for the Motability scheme for disabled people. The scheme supports disabled people to lease a vehicle, electric scooter or powered wheelchair.
The right wing media peddles lies about people being handed a “free car” at the taxpayer’s expense. But disabled people pay for the lease by choosing to spend part of their Personal Independence Payment (Pip).
For many, the scheme is essential for people to participate in everyday life.
Andy in Somerset told Socialist Worker that having a vehicle was “an absolute lifeline”. “I have agorophobia. I’ve also got mobility problems. There are some days when I can’t walk more than 50 metres.
“I hadn’t been out of the house for months. The car was a major difference. I could go out,” he said.
“It transformed my life. I was able to become more mobile and regain my confidence about going out in the world.”
Euan lives in East Ayrshire, Scotland, and is an unpaid carer for his younger brother Ross, who has a car through Motability. He told Socialist Worker, “Without that car he would be incredibly isolated. Public transport just isn’t a safe and viable option for him.”
“With a vehicle he is able to access various things in his community. He gets to see friends. One of his favourite things is to go book shopping.”
Nicola in London told Socialist Worker, “For some, having a car might be a luxury. But for some of us it’s essential. Having a car is as essential as having a washing machine or having a bed.
“There is no free car,” she said. “You pay through the nose. You are only entitled to apply if you receive the enhanced Pip mobility rate and if you have been through the tough process of being assessed.”
Slashing funding from Motability will hit the poorest disabled people hardest and thrust more into poverty. “People are really struggling already,” Andy said. “People can’t afford the electricity bill—I know disabled people who have sacrificed hot water.”
Euan said, “My brother’s life would be very different if he didn’t have Motability. You would see his quality of life decline. He would be in more distress and his behaviour would become difficult.
“Of course we would step in and try to help. We would have to look into buying a private vehicle, but we can’t really afford it.
“Family members would have to take time out of our lives. But as much as we love him to bits and would step in, not many 28 year olds want to go out with their parents all their time, or with their brother,” Euan added.
“He wants to live his own life.”
Rob, a visually impaired Motability user in Newcastle, explained that everything is more expensive for disabled people. “If you don’t have a car you inevitably end up taking taxis everywhere,” he told Socialist Worker. “It would cost me nearly £30 to go to the gym and back if I had to do that.”
Motability helps disabled people get vehicles with adaptations so they can travel independently. The steering wheel may be adapted, or a winch might be put in to pull their wheelchair into the vehicle.
Labour claims it wants to “Get Britain working”. But cutting Motability will achieve the opposite as the scheme helps many people work.
“One of my friends is an internationally renowned speaker on disability,” Euan said. “His ability to travel and educate people would be impossible without being able to travel with the specialised equipment he needs.”
Workers under capitalism are at the whims of bosses. While they constantly push people to work harder, often they don’t want to shoulder the extra costs of employing someone with an impairment.
Stigmas around disabled people feed the misconceptions that they are incapable or completely reliant on other people.
But disabled people themselves have fought to challenge these perceptions. They constantly fight to gain choice and control over their lives, whether that means working, having a social life or something as simple as going to a bookshop.
While capitalism squeezes people out of society, it does need a layer of disabled people to go into the workplace and make profits from them.
Although disabled people are more likely than others to be unemployed, around half of disabled people of working age do have a job.
Family members are often expected to support their disabled relatives, but they are not paid to do this full time.
Disabled people are expected to cope with all the demands of 21st century life, such as working a regular job.
There is pressure on people to be independent and not to ask for help. Cutting schemes such as Motability, Pip and Access to Work undermines this sense of mobility and independence.
Nicola discussed some of these contradictions. “Without a car, you have to rely on people giving you a lift. I don’t like asking for help—and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t find it difficult to ask. All of us are conditioned to think we shouldn’t ask for help.”
Disabled people are also consumers for the goods that capitalists produce. Motability makes a substantial contribution to the economy, funnelling money into the private car industry. There are 860,000 users of the scheme, accounting for nearly one in five car sales each year in Britain.
Motability is a charity. But it has a lot of power as it buys and leases cars in large volumes.
After three years, the lease period ends and Motability can also recoup some of the cost by selling the second hand vehicle.
Disabled people and others have shown it is possible to resist attacks on them. As they organise, the large numbers of disabled people in society helps make it more difficult to drive them back into the home.
Rob said that cutting funding for Motability would be “a difficult thing to do. Every family in the country probably has someone who is disabled so they are attacking the whole population. It’s not very well thought through.”
Labour ministers claim welfare spending is growing to “staggering” heights.
But even Chris Giles, from the bosses Financial Times newspaper, denies this. He writes, “There is precious little truth in a picture of Britain as a country where hordes of shirkers collect benefits from the rest of us.”
The amount of money going to working age people as a proportion of overall government spending has stayed roughly the same for the past 40 years. And the number of people not working has generally gone down over the decades as more women join the workforce. Now it’s pretty much as low as it’s ever been.
Giles shows that the number of people claiming disability related payments has indeed gone up. But this is partly fuelled by growing levels of mental health claims. While people face more and more stress under capitalism, they feel more comfortable talking about it.
There is also a “whack-a-mole” effect. If one area of welfare spending is cut, there are more claims in another area.
And while the number of people claiming out of work benefits has increased, it’s largely due to increases in the state pension age. Some older people are claiming in work sickness benefits when they would otherwise have retired and been on the state pension.
Giles is no radical. He wants a “less generous” welfare state. But the money is there to fund welfare. Labour could choose instead to tax the rich and stop pouring money into fossil fuels subsidies and weapons.
Reeves is considering cutting exemptions to VAT and insurance premium tax for Motability users to try to claw back £1 billion of spending on the scheme.
The Labour government attempted to save billions by drastically restricting who is eligible for Pip over the summer. But it was forced to row back after protests from disabled people and a huge threatened revolt of Labour MPs. But still it pushed through cuts to the Universal Credit payment for new claimants.
The government may still try to make changes to Pip after disability minister Stephen Timms comes back with the outcome of a review into the benefit next year. But in the meantime the chancellor is searching around for other ways to make disabled people pay.
Reeves has also suggested that luxury car brands should not be available through the Motability scheme.
Some 5 percent of Motability vehicles are made by BMW, Audi and Mercedes—some people make additional payments themselves to upgrade the vehicle.
“It’s portrayed as if everyone is getting a brand new Mercedes every three years,” Euan said. “That’s just not accurate. It’s generally a pretty standard vehicle.
“There might be some disabled people with a new BMW,” Euan added. “But they have paid for that. That’s their choice. It’s not a choice I would make. But it’s not given to them by the government.”
Labour is lurching to the right on welfare as it tries to chase votes from Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s party is determined to make deep cuts to welfare spending. He has said, “There are those that genuinely deserve help but there are many frankly that don’t.”
Earlier this year the Daily Mail’s bigoted columnist Richard Littlejohn said, “The Motability scheme was never designed to buy 50-grand Mercs for bedwetting boy racers in balaclavas with made-up mental illnesses. Scrap it now!”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also attacked the scheme saying it should be restricted to those with “serious disabilities” and “not for people with ADHD”.
Andy said the media onslaught has a real impact. “As soon as you get the vehicle you are worried about losing it again. You always read these stories in the press about people faking their disability. There is always this anxiety about losing the car.
“It’s in reaction to the far right really. They are the ones who are putting out these messages. Reeves is trying to appease them.”
With living standards in decline, Labour refuses to confront those problems caused by capitalism. Instead, it is looking for scapegoats.
“It feels like another attack on disabled people,” Euan added. “We are demonised as being a major drain on society without realising that disabled people are contributing members of society.
“As well as that we are seeing more hostility towards refugees, more Islamophobia, more antisemitism and more attacks on trans+ people. The government is fuelling all of it.”
All workers share one thing—collective organisation is the only power they have
Health staffing crisis endangers us all
Thousands of residents in London have been without water for months
The climate crisis is impossible to ignore
