Shadow work and pensions minister Helen Whately stands accused of telling a massive lie in her efforts to demonise claimants with mental health and neurodevelopmental issues, in her speech to the Conservative party conference today.

Whately told the assembled delegates:

“Millions are getting benefits for anxiety and ADHD, along with a free Motability car.”

In reality, the number of claimants who get the enhanced rate of the mobility component – which gives access to the Motability scheme is:

Mixed anxiety and depressive disorders:  128,164

Anxiety disorders:  20,272

ADHD:  42,596

So, the total number of claimants with anxiety or ADHD who would be eligible for a Motability car, though many will not actually have used their mobility component in this way, is actually 191,032.

So, even if we took Whately’s “millions” to mean two million, that would still be more than ten times the maximum possible number of people with anxiety and ADHD who could have “a free Motability car.”

Will Whately apologise for misleading not just the conference, but also the British public, and deliberately stoking hatred and prejudice against disabled benefits claimants?

We suspect we already know the answer to that question.

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  • Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated before being published.
    · 1 hours ago
    I am housebound without my car but I have only ever been eligible for low rate mobility DLA and now standard PIP mobility. I have always been under the impression that you can't get ERM for MH alone and that you must have some physical restrictions also. If that's true it blows their argument out the water.
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    · 1 hours ago
    Whately is dim and dishonest in equal measure. As such, she encapsulates the modern Tory party rather well.
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    · 2 hours ago
    Wanting to cut housing benefit, changing PIP to one off grants for equipment, the removal of benefits for mental health claimants, the 23 billion pounds in cuts - Labour plans of £5b seem tame in comparison to her demonisation, scapegoating and targeting of disabled people who apparently are all lying on the sofa, just getting sickness benefits through a gp sick note and 1 phone call without sending mountains of evidence to PIP for assessment and thinking that grants or vouchers can replace an independence payment that is for in and out of work 🤦🏼 it’s enough to make your blood boil
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    · 2 hours ago
    According to Helen Whately the reason people are having to pay high taxes is the vast number of lazy people claiming disablity benefits. Because they are easy to claim and give them £5,000 more a year than a full time job pays, and a new free BMW car every 3 years. While they laze around at home having goods delivered to their door, eating takeaways and smoking dope. So people choose to be on benefits and are rewarded for their lack of personal responsibility. Lord Mackinlay works so they can get off their backsides and work.

    The whole segment on welfare at the Conservative conference was awful. And the audience in the hall asked to rate what the welfare system should prioritise most placed supporting ill and disabled people last. 
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    · 4 hours ago
    I imagine Helen Whately will simply take the opportunity to object to the fact that there are claimants who receive the higher rate mobility who don't use their mobility component for the motability scheme
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      · 46 minutes ago
      @rookie I’m registered severely sight impaired. I’m not allowed to drive and therefore there’s absolutely no point in having a mobility car stuck outside the front of my home. I can’t see the bloody car let alone getting into car and seeing the steering wheel,  what a silly woman. 
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      · 2 hours ago
      @rookie I'm  one, and the mutability scheme is an expensive  way of leasing a car if you don't need  a WAV
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    · 4 hours ago
    They might as well start rounding us up and sending us off to camps. Disgraceful that we're being treated like this in 21st century Britain. The political landscape is shameful, all this constant picking on the most vulnerable people in society, will it ever end? 
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