My Lords, Amendment 8 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson. In moving the amendment, I am returning to a subject that I raised in your Lordships’ House on 17 January, 24 January and 13 February, and in a series of Written Questions that all relate to the issue of Motability.
During the debate on 17 January, I asked this question:
“Can the Minister confirm the Government’s own prediction, made earlier this month, that 27% fewer working-age people will be eligible for the Motability scheme once PIP is fully rolled out? Disability organisations say that the new proposal means that 42% fewer disabled people of working age will be eligible—an average of 200 people in every constituency”.—[Official Report, 17/1/13; col. 818.]
I received no answer from the Minister that day, and that failure to set out the Government’s own estimates of how many people will actually be affected has driven me to raise this issue yet again. On 24 January the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, the chairman of Motability, said that there are some 620,000 vehicles on the road,
“which is probably the largest fleet of its type in the world”.—[Official Report, 24/1/13; col. 1181.]
For Parliament to be asked to walk blindfolded into decisions that will result in some Motability users having their specially adapted vehicles repossessed is simply unconscionable. It is also deeply irresponsible.
One-third of disabled people live in poverty, and with some claimants losing as much as £150 a month if they fail to meet the newly tightened criteria—an annual loss of nearly £1,800—the situation is unbelievably bleak. The Disability Benefits Consortium, which represents more than 50 disability rights groups, reminds us that for disabled people, Motability vehicles are,
“their means of independence and participation, the lifeline that enables them to get to work, to GP appointments, to the shops, to take their kids to school”.
On 13 February, at the conclusion of the debate on the regulations, we got a little closer to the scale of what is about to happen. I quoted the figures and asked the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud:
“Does the noble Lord agree with those figures? If he disputes them, what figure would he give the House?”.
The noble Lord, Lord Freud, replied:
“My Lords, we know how many people will get the higher mobility component, a figure that will clearly be fewer under PIP than under DLA. I have provided those figures but, just for the record, the figure of roughly 1 million people on the DLA component in a steady state will reduce to roughly 600,000. That is the decline”.—[Official Report, 13/2/13; col. 741.]
When pressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, the Minister also remarked:
“Yes, my Lords, there is some churn”.
He added, after an intervention that I made:
“In closing, it is simply not possible for me to confirm, deny or reach any figures in answer to the noble Lord’s question on how many cars will go”.—[Official Report, 13/2/13; col. 742.]
Yet we are asked to sleepwalk our way into allowing people’s Motability cars to be taken away from them. I might remark that “churn”, when referring to people losing their means of mobility, strikes me as an unfortunate expression to put it mildly. It sounds like a calculating or statistical term when we are debating an issue with enormous human implications.
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Amendment 8 has been accepted by the Public Bill Office and is in order because underpinning the link between the 2012 Act and this Bill is the fact that this Bill is about changes in the amounts of welfare benefits, and PIP is a welfare benefit. It is therefore in order to legislate on changes to any welfare benefit via this Bill, even those not originally included in it, and so, before it completes its stages, the Government and Parliament have the opportunity, if they so wish, to safeguard those who will otherwise see their Motability vehicles repatriated.
My amendment is simply a plea to the Government to think about providing a transitional arrangement—perhaps a two or three-year period of grace—for those who already have vehicles and who risk losing them. If this amendment does not achieve that objective, I hope that the Minister will at the very minimum say that the Government will bring forward on Report an amendment which does. This Bill cannot be used to change the eligibility criteria, but it can be used to prevent sequestration of vehicles.
At present, the enhanced rate of the mobility component is established by Section 79 of the 2012 Act. Section 79(3)(b) states that the weekly rate, or “the enhanced rate”, may be prescribed. Section 95 explains that “prescribed” means prescribed by regulations and Section 94 explains that these regulations have to be set out in a statutory instrument. The Government have committed that PIP will be linked to inflation. As the regulations setting the rate of PIP, the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013, agreed by the House on 13 February, do not make any reference—as we heard earlier today—to a link to inflation, the Government will need to announce new rates via statutory instrument each year. Therefore, subsection (3) of the proposed new clause in this amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult Motability before publishing the new rate.
Subsections (1) and (2) take a different approach. If an existing leaseholder of a Motability vehicle is being charged more by Motability than the enhanced or standard rate of mobility allowance awards them, they may under the amendment personally petition the Secretary of State for more money, and the Secretary of State would have to pay them—just the petitioners, not everyone receiving the mobility component—exactly enough extra money to meet Motability’s requirements.
I would like to prevent all the reductions which the Government are making to the Motability scheme, but this amendment does not do that—indeed it would be incapable of doing that at this stage. It takes the most extreme situation that will occur as a consequence of government cuts in public finance to save both current users of Motability vehicles and to save the Government from the disaster of being seen to be responsible for taking away a lifeline for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
Let me share one or two comments which I have received. The following letter arrived just this morning from a Mr and Mrs Stanton who live in Uxbridge. They state:
“We are both terrified that we will lose any monies that we desperately need just to carry on a normal life and, may we add, just to exist”.
Mr Stanton says:
“I have Crohn’s disease and was born diabetic, and recently have had two stents fitted after a heart attack … We are not layabout scroungers as Mr Cameron would like to portray us both, but in fact both had jobs each, myself 38 years, but no time off except for holidays and my dear wife 27 years until illness stopped her in her tracks”.
I have also looked at some case studies which have been provided by some of the disability rights organisations. I have many of them, but I realise that time is at a premium, so I shall cite only one or two.
“My DLA helps me lead a more independent life, be less reliant on parents and feel less of a burden on family. DLA helps me do this as much as I can. Without it, I may as well give up. I know one thing: without it, I wouldn’t be able to work at all. Why is this the case? The car for one thing. Without my mobility car I couldn’t get to the local shops. I may only live a mile from the local shops and for most people walking this isn’t a problem but for me it is next to impossible”.
There is also this comment from someone living in a rural area:
“I will be one of the house bound. I live in a rural location and rely on my hoist in my Motability car to lift my mobility scooter
in and out. I cannot self-propel my wheelchair far enough to be useful. So I will be stuck at home. I feel powerless to cope with it”.
Finally, there is this comment from someone in Wales.
“We live on a mountain in the Welsh Valleys. Even our main high street is on an incline. We have no roads that are on the flat. I had until March 2014 left on my higher rate mobility claim, and to lose my Mobility Car entitlement would condemn me to being virtually house bound. I do have a mobility scooter but this limits me to short distances and the mercy of the weather. My mobility payments help cover the running costs of my scooter electricity usage and repairs. My future is looking very bleak”.
Let me say a word about attempts to blur the responsibility for the loss of Motability vehicles in the kind of case studies that I have just alluded to. On 13 February, in answer to Written Questions that I tabled, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, said:
“As an independent charity, Motability is wholly responsible for the administration of the Motability scheme, including setting policy on the recovery of vehicles. We are continuing to work closely with Motability to understand what impact the introduction of PIP might have on its customer numbers and to ensure the smooth introduction of PIP as it relates to users of the Motability scheme”.—[Official Report, 13/2/13; col. WA 157.]
That is true only up to a point. Motability can run the scheme only with government support. Motability did not change the ground rules. Motability did not introduce PIP. The Government must accept responsibility for those changes.
What will we lose? What is at stake? Oxford Economics, in a report drawn to my attention by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and which the Library kindly made available to me, entitled Economic and Social Impact of the Motability Scheme and published in 2010, reminds us of the many important benefits that the scheme brings to its users and wider society. It states:
“The impacts are difficult to measure but one estimate suggests that by enabling people to visit family and friends more frequently, Motability increased its customers’ well-being by the monetary equivalent of up to £3.2 billion in 2009”.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, will take that figure and one or two others which I shall give in due course back to his noble friends and others at the Treasury.
The Oxford Economics survey found that almost all—99% of—Motability customers had participated in social activities outside their home in the previous month. The vast majority of customers—73%—said that they are more independent now that they have a Motability car. Of those, 49% said that they are a lot more independent. It also found that having a Motability car improves disabled people’s financial independence: 60% reported that they were better off after receiving a Motability car. The car also significantly increases the degree of choice and control that customers have over their lives. Their average ranking of the extent of choice and control they have rises from 3.8 to 7.9 after receiving a Motability car. The car also affects disabled people’s financial independence. Of the Motability customers surveyed, 60% reported that, taking all the impacts of the car into account, they were better off after receiving the car rather than purchasing their own car or using other forms of transport. That was particularly the case for the youngest age group, the three to 24 year-olds, who would be expected to have the lowest income and wealth. The qualitative discussion
groups consulted said that the financial benefits were secondary to the other benefits that having a Motability car brings to disabled people’s lives.
Having a Motability vehicle enables disabled people to make spontaneous and independent decisions to travel to places and to undertake activities of their own choosing. That increases their independence. Having a Motability car also enables disabled people to enhance their social lives. Since getting the car, 60% of customers said that their ability to visit family and friends had improved. In this comprehensive study, estimates are made of the economic value of some of the social impacts that are enabled by disabled people having a Motability scheme car. The study of social impacts has been able to quantify amounts of up to £1.3 billion a year in worth to the economy. In addition, customers’ enhanced ability to visit family and friends is worth the monetary equivalent of £3.2 billion.
Are we really willing to cast aside all these gains and condemn disabled or immobile people to revert to living without transportation? Even worse, are we really willing to sanction reforms that will result in existing vehicles being taken away from users who have qualified for their vehicles under arrangements already legislated for by Parliament? I cannot believe that a decent, humane or civilised country would do this and I trust that the Minister will give the principles that underline the amendment serious consideration and, before forcing us to divide on this at a later stage, will promise to come forward with transitional arrangements to prevent these sequestrations and repatriation of vehicles occurring. I beg to move.