Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Lord Alton of Liverpool

Monday 25th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

The noble Baroness made two points. The first was that the vehicles will be offered for sale to existing users rather than them necessarily being repatriated. Will she explain to the House what research has been done by the department and by Motability to establish how many people would be in a position to afford to buy their own vehicle? What work has been done to look at the maintenance costs of those vehicles, should they purchase them?

The noble Baroness went on to describe the circumstances in which people would be able to keep the vehicles if an appeal was pending. Surely that is precisely what this amendment is seeking to do: that is, to find transitional arrangements in all those circumstances. Would it not therefore be sensible for the Government to take the amendment away and to come forward with an amendment that does all the things that it seems to me we are agreed we need to address?

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

On the point about the cost of purchasing, all the evidence suggests that a Motability car in effect acquires through its VAT exemptions and tax exemptions something like a 40% discount on what it would cost to hire a similar car in the private market, and that is before any adaptations. Given the level of income of disabled people and the poverty that we know so many of them face by being out of the labour market and having the additional costs of heating and so on associated with their disability, I cannot see how that would be a realistic option for all but a very few of them.