Conservative Party proposals to tighten DWP Motability Scheme and disability benefit eligibility, Digi Mart USA News: The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) could be forced to push through cuts to the Motability Scheme under the Conservatives, according to a report from Birmingham Live. Helen Whately, the Conservative Party shadow work and pensions secretary, made the threat at a press conference where Kemi Badenoch promised £36 billion in benefits and disability cuts.
Ms Whately said: “People are making a mockery of the system, bragging about their free Motability cars, flaunting their new keys on TikTok. They think it’s a victimless crime.
It isn’t. Eighteen million households will each pay £50,000 in taxes for working age welfare.” She claimed that Labour had made benefits “more generous and easier to claim.”
The Motability Scheme is run by Motability Operations and allows claimants receiving Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to lease cars. A Tory Party document seen by Birmingham Live shows that the Conservative plan for Motability would be to end VAT exemptions, which would save £1 billion.
Ms Whately said the Conservatives would change this.
She added: “Today we’re publishing the detail behind our savings policies. We will tighten eligibility for sickness benefits so you can no longer claim for mild mental health and routine back and joint pain and reform.”
Sara Ogilvie, policy director at the Child Poverty Action Group, warned that Conservative proposals to clamp down on the child benefit cap risk increasing poverty. Ogilvie said: “These proposals would take the UK back to the dark ages, causing the biggest overnight increase in child poverty since records began.
We need all our politicians to commit to a plan to reduce child poverty rather than condemn the next generation to a future of struggle.”
Mrs Badenoch responded: “Child poverty groups are there to say that there’s going to be more and more child poverty unless their demands are met. We have to balance what they’re saying with what the facts say and with what we are seeing on the ground.
We are MPs as well. We see what’s happening in constituencies.
Of course, we don’t want to see child poverty, but the best way to stop child poverty is to make sure their parents have well paying jobs. That is our plan.”
