THE bloated face of capitalism has reared its ugly head with frankly astonishing facts about Motability — the taxpayer-funded scheme allowing people with disabilities to lease a car, a wheelchair accessible vehicle, a scooter or a powered wheelchair according to individual needs over a three-year period. 

This scheme is an absolute lifeline for disabled people.  

Its bottom line is allowing disabled people to have a stake in society, a means to get to work, a way to get disabled children into school, a day trip further afield, a holiday, trips to and from the shops in town and a way to be independent moving around your own home.

These are things most non-disabled people take for granted but are the very lifelines for disabled people to participate in life.

Recently we learnt Motability is sitting on a hoard of £2.4 billion of public cash and paid its CEO £1.7million in salary last year.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) select committee hauled Motability Operations head Mike Betts before it to explain why the company had so much cash stashed in reserve and he simply couldn’t answer.

On top of this we are now hearing Motability has spent a whopping £26m on a grandiose refurbishment of its offices, including fine art displays and luxurious fittings. 

Despite these revelations, we are no closer to holding Motability to account or to a point where the Tory government overhauls the scheme that has allowed Motability to get away with such contempt for public funds. 

Motability isn’t a free scheme. It can only be used for those disabled people who receive the highest mobility rate under the Disabled Living Allowance (DLA), the enhanced rate under Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or War Pensioners’ Mobility Supplement.

Since the Tories are moving people from DLA to PIP, thousands of disabled people are no longer able to receive the enhanced PIP rate and have had to give up their cars.

It has been estimated that somewhere between 50,000 to 75,000 disabled people no longer fit the very narrow criteria needed to qualify for enhanced mobility PIP.

The figures vary for people who no longer fit the very narrow strict criteria of enhanced mobility PIP.

Those who do receive enhanced mobility PIP receive £58 per week (£232 per month) and this is exchanged for a leased car under the scheme for three years.

Until recently, there used to be many cars of varying sizes that didn’t require individuals to have to make an advance non-refundable payment for their chosen car. Nor was there any requirement to make regular monthly lease payments. 

I have discovered there are more and more cars which now require an up-front advance payment, varying from £99 to many thousands of pounds for wheelchair accessible vehicles.

A standard estate car, for example, had a £200 advance payment in 2015, but this has increased to £1,499 in March 2018. Many disabled people need larger cars to fit everything in and are being penalised with these large non-refundable advance payments.

As these stealth increases rise, the coffers of Motability are overflowing by £2.4 billion and the CEO parties on by with his multimillion-pound salary. How can this be right? 

Disabled people on the scheme also face a barrage of disabled hate rhetoric from the usual suspects who perceive them to be “scroungers” and getting “free cars and wheelchairs.” 

These types have no idea that £232 per month is paid to lease a vehicle and in many cases one-off advance payments must be saved for and handed over too.

Hate crime against disabled people is rising meteorically and the Tories do nothing to condemn this publicly. They also fail to provide facts about the Motability scheme to dispel the myth that disabled people are getting free vehicles. They are not. 

Under PIP, disabled people are losing their cars and thus their independence and their right to participate in society. This is nothing short of scandalous, callous government by the Tories.

It is appalling that the United Nations has had to investigate the way our government is treating disabled people. It found that there is obvious discrimination and that disabled people are becoming poorer and living voiceless lives behind closed doors as their rights and freedoms are being eroded.

On a weekly basis we read of stories of notes left on disabled people’s car windscreens, screaming at them for parking in disabled bays, as everyone now seems to be an expert on who is disabled and who isn’t.

So what are the Tories doing about the £2.4bn reserve hoard Motability chiefs are sitting on?

Will Theresa May be visiting the £26m refurbished offices to admire the artwork or will she and her ministers demand the company is overhauled and scrutinised to ensure it is providing good value for money for its disabled clients?

Disabled people deserve far better than this. They deserve a compassionate government that understands that independence is best served by a public taxpayer-funded company scheme serving its clients by enabling disabled people and not letting top managers help themselves.