43% of all DLA claimants who had a car under the Motability scheme but who have had to go through the transfer to PIP have lost their vehicle as a result, it was revealed this week.
Declan O'Mahony, director of Motability, told the work and pensions committee that of 175,000 Motability customers who have bee reassessed for PIP so far, around 75,000 had lost their vehicle as a result.
Mr O’Mahony told the committee:
“To date we have seen about 175,000 of our current scheme customers go through the DWP’s reassessment process from DLA to PIP. In round numbers, 100,000 of those have retained higher-level mobility so, as far as the scheme is concerned, it is fine and they continue in the same place. Seventy-five thousand have lost higher rate mobility. They have either dropped to standard rate or to nil and, as a consequence, they have to leave the scheme. That 75,000 is the group of people to whom we are providing transitional support.”
O’Mahomy also told the committee that most Motability customers who are forced to leave the scheme are given a cash payment of £2,000 and that the majority spend this money on a used car. So far over £100 million has been paid out in grants of £2,000 per customer.
He added that Motability make further grants to some claimants who lose their car but who need a drive-in wheelchair vehicle, or wheelchair access and the controls built around the wheelchair in the driver’s position. In total additional grants totalling £20 million have been given to 8,500 former Motability users who need these adaptations.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow , chair of Motability, claimed that although a large number of people were being lost from the Motability scheme “over the next three years we will be taking on at least a quarter of a billion people, this time with mental disabilities”.
