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Motability is now the largest fleet car operator in Europe and costs the taxpayer £2.8bn. Peter Stanford’s mother benefited from the tax-break scheme in the 1980s and it changed her life – but, he asks, can we really afford it when there isn’t enough money to go around?
My mum had a series of Motability cars over the years when I was growing up in Liverpool in the 1980s and 1990s. All were bottom-of-the-range Ford Escorts, all were blue, and all were driven by my dad so she could get out and about as a mother, homemaker and wheelchair-user with multiple sclerosis.
For us, a car was a necessity, not a luxury. Back then, almost all public transport was inaccessible. Once, I remember being stranded with her in the city centre, waiting in a taxi queue and having driver after driver refuse to take us on the demonstrably false basis that her chair wouldn’t fit into the cab.
Motability felt like a blessing. First introduced in 1977, it has, over the years, done the same for four million people who receive certain higher-level disability benefits and can use some of the money to lease a car through this government-backed scheme.
Yet of late, it has become the subject of controversy and political debate, with suggestions being tabled by think tanks that its funding could be better spent on other projects. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has claimed that Motability is being exploited by people who aren’t really disabled and pledged to “restrict Motability vehicles to people with serious disabilities”, telling the party’s conference this month: “Those cars are not for people with ADHD.”
Meanwhile, the National Audit Office has accused it of being badly and wastefully run, its executives overpaid (its chief executive was paid £658,000 last year while the company made a £565m loss in 2024), and the government is exerting too little oversight when taxpayers’ money is being spent on it. No surprise then that we hear that Rachel Reeves is now examining reforms to the scheme, which could help her save billions and boost public confidence in the welfare system.
Just last month, the right-wing Adam Smith Institute floated the idea that its taxpayer subsidy could be spent instead on repairing school buildings. And ideas like these, which appear to have resonated in hard-pressed times, so much so that an anonymous online site was set up earlier to allow you to look up if your next-door neighbour had got that new car on the drive through Motability.
After vocal protests in parliament about how it appealed to our base instincts, it was taken down, but according to Nigel Fletcher, chief executive of the Motability Foundation, the attacks are all part of a “climate of stigmatisation [that] risks rolling back decades of progress in promoting disability inclusion and understanding”.
Strong words, but could some of the charges being levelled against Motability contain an element of truth? Back in the day, my mum, raised in hard-pressed circumstances and a fan of Margaret Thatcher, had a sharp eye – and a sharp rebuke – for misuse of taxpayers’ money.
A friend of hers, I recall, felt the weight of her disapproval when she shared what she described as “good news”. Her daughter, whose partner had cancer and was receiving palliative care at a local hospice, had managed to take him for what was potentially his last outing to the nearest car dealership that offered a Motability scheme so that he could sign up for a car. When he died soon afterwards, the daughter would be able to buy the virtually new car from Motability at a discount price.
Motability points out that it is continually refining the way it runs its scheme to protect against misuse. Such transfers are now subject to much more stringent criteria. Yet Kemi Badenoch’s accusation went deeper than quoting individuals playing the system.
It was wrapped up in the direct connection between the benefits system and Motability. Changing societal attitudes have resulted in a broader definition of disability, especially around mental health challenges. Numbers of those on a higher (or enhanced) rate of PiP (Personal Independence Payment) have, as a consequence, gone up steeply in recent years, as, by association, have numbers of those legitimately accessing the Motability scheme.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that between July 2021 and July 2022, the number of working-age people on PiP had doubled, with a third of new claimants having mental or behavioural conditions. And that rise continues. Latest figures for July 2025 show that 3.8 million people are now on PiP, up 2 per cent on the same figure just three months earlier. Of these claimants, 37 per cent were on the higher level that qualifies them for Motability.
No wonder the scheme is growing and drawing not always flattering attention to itself. In the 45 years since its inception in 1977, four million cars have been supplied by Motability, with little fuss and quietly changing lives like mine. However, the latest figures – for 2024 – show that 815,000 cars sold in the UK had been via Motability. That is one in five of all new purchases and was up a whopping 15 per cent on the previous year, making Motability the largest fleet car operator in Europe.
Earlier this year, Traditional Unionist Voice MP, Jim Allister, asked a question in the House of Commons about why almost half of all new cars being registered annually in Northern Ireland – 18,000 out of a total of 39,000 – were done so under the Motability Scheme. Figures for the number of disabled people in the UK stand at around 24 per cent.
Responding to this rise, the Adam Smith Institute, in its report, advocated that Motability should offer its users second-hand cars instead of new ones. The average age of the family car in the UK is 10 years old. Why do Motability cars have to be brand new, they asked, promising an annual saving of £1.2bn per year if their plan was adopted.
Motability disputes their figures – saying older cars cost more to maintain and would wipe out any savings. But arguably more revealing – and concerning – is how the Institute framed this choice of old over new. At a time when we hear daily that there just isn’t enough money left in the Exchequer to go round, we are facing questions about our priorities, so they were boiling it down to a straight either/or between a new roof on your local school, or my mum being able to go to the shops in her Motability car.
But it isn’t that simple. In my childhood, even at the height of the Thatcher austerity drive, because we were “living above our means”, the nation was humane enough to be able to afford both. Yet today, as both the government and the Tory opposition have targeted the benefits system, Motability is being dragged into the debate.
In this fraught atmosphere, perhaps it is useful not to look back on my own experiences of yesteryear, but to hear from a current Motability user. Chris Haynes purchased his WAV – wheelchair accessible vehicle – through the Motability scheme, with Motability’s charitable arm (patron HM King Charles) chipping in to help him make the necessary adaptations he needed to use the van. The 37-year-old father of two has a high-level spinal cord injury and works as an independent living adviser.
He uses the van to travel from his home in Leamington Spa to spinal injury centres to support those newly-injured in rebuilding their lives. “Motability gives me the ability to work,” he explains. “I’ve tried using buses and trains, but most only have one or two spaces for wheelchair users and if those are in use, I can’t get on.”
Another aspect to consider, behind the headlines and eye-catching proposals for reform, is the dependence of our national car industry on Motability sales
He certainly doesn’t regard the current arrangements for Motability as perfect. “There may be some people who are playing the system, but what I see is Motability enabling people to get around with their families, go to work, and earn a living. If access to the scheme is restricted, they may not be able to do that, and what will the cost of that come to?”
Another aspect to consider, behind the headlines and eye-catching proposals for reform, is the dependence of our national car industry on Motability sales. Just this week, the south-east of England dealership chain, Glyn Hopkin, with 50 outlets, reported its first pre-tax loss in its 31-year history.
A downturn in sales of 12 per cent had caused it to lose £7m, it explained, but added that 20 per cent of the cars it sold were done on the Motability scheme. Start handing out second-hand cars to Motability claimants, and what negative impact will that have on our already struggling car factories and car dealerships? And hence unemployment and GDP?
Such huge questions sit awkwardly beside the reality of what Motability is providing every day in individual lives at a time of challenge. But any way forward has to reconcile both.
Peter Stanford was chair of Aspire, the national spinal injuries charity, from 1991 to 2010
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