By Linda Howard

Copyright dailyrecord

The Conservative Party have announced plans to restrict eligibility for the Motability Scheme, if they win the next general election. The Motability Scheme currently provides access to vehicles, scooters and electric powered wheelchairs to around 815,000 people across Great Britain, including 80,000 in Scotland. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told party members at the conference in Manchester: “We will restrict Motability vehicles to people with serious disabilities. Those cars are not for people with ADHD.” The announcement forms part of the Conservatives ‘blueprint for work and welfare, which will also target 6.6 million working age adults claiming benefits but not in employment “being paid to sit at home all day”. She told the conference the 6.5m figure is equivalent to the entire population of residents in Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and Manchester. Mrs Badenoch said: “We cannot expect people to get up and go to work, and pay more and more in taxes, to subsidise millions of others not to work. “It is not controversial to say this.Conference, we have done the hard work.And we have a plan to cut welfare spending.” The first part is for “British benefits for British Citizens”. She explained: “It is common sense that you should not draw out of a system that you haven’t paid in to.” The second part is to “restrict benefits to those with more severe mental health conditions – not anxiety or mild depression”. She added: “Yes, these challenges are real, and people should get support. But they cannot be treated as a reason for a lifetime off work.” Mrs Badenoch continued: “These are the first steps of a radical reform of our welfare system. We will return to its founding principle. “That support only goes to those that really need it. This should be common sense. But only the Conservatives understand this.” She told the conference: “Labour, the Liberal Dems, Greens, the nationalists, and Reform are all demanding more welfare spending. They don’t care that it’s not fair, but we do.” The Tory leader went on to highlight how after Covid, 2,000 people a day were being signed onto out-of-work sickness benefits, calling it a “national tragedy”. She also said that in one year of a Labour government, the latest figure has now more than doubled with 5,000 new people signing on every single day. She added: “This isn’t just about saving money – important though that is – it’s far more than that. It is driven by our deep, Conservative conviction that work is a good in itself. “And as people work, as they strive, as they provide for themselves and their families, they should not pay more and more of their money in taxes, to a state that provides less and less. So, fixing the state is next in our Blueprint.”