What Rachel Reeves didn't say about Motability in the Budget

26th November 2025

bbc.co.uk/accessall

Access All – Ep 188

Presented by Emma Tracey

EMMA- Hello, I’m Emma Tracey. And thank you for listening to Access All. It’s Scam Safe week here on the BBC, aiming to give you the knowledge that you need to protect yourself from fraud. Did you know that neurodivergent people are 50% more likely to be scammed than the rest of the population? Later I’ll be speaking to neurodivergence and security expert, Holly Foxcroft.

HOLLY- We don’t want to say that we’ve been scammed because it could be so glaringly obvious to other people that they wouldn’t fall for it, that it can be harder for us to admit what’s happened or even recognise that we’ve been exploited.

EMMA- More of that later. But I have Hayley with me, BBC Education journalist. Hi, Hayley.

HAYLEY- Hello.

EMMA- And how are you doing at the moment?

HAYLEY- I’m good, thank you. I think I’ve been struggling with this cold weather, but I feel myself slowly coming out of it.

EMMA- We’ve been chatting over the last few days and you’ve been telling me about your different seasons of feelings, and some have been down to ADHD. So, can we just talk through, at the moment you’re a little bit struggley?

HAYLEY- Yeah.

EMMA- Because it’s cold and dark?

HAYLEY- I think yeah, it’s the shock of it. I really struggle with that seasonal change when we say goodbye to summer. And I think as it’s got bitterly cold that’s sort of amplified. And I’ve seen it a lot on my socials with seasonal affective disorder and neurodivergence and sort of a crossover, and I think for me it’s because I struggle with change and also those executive functioning challenges like getting out of bed, getting into the shower, getting out of the house in the dark.

Last week I just cancelled my yoga class because I was like, absolutely not, it is bitterly cold and I’ll hibernate.

EMMA- So, many of us who don’t have ADHD really struggle with those things in the winter. You’ve called them executive function things. What does that mean, and why do you struggle a little bit more with those and why in the winter?

HAYLEY- I think of executive functioning as the daily tasks that are often the easier things for neurotypical people, but it’s the level of challenge for neurodivergent people that I think makes it an executive functioning challenge. It would be that stuff like doing your food shopping, getting yourself organised for work, doing your washing, putting it away, tidying stuff up, they’re the executive functioning challenges that are more difficult often if you have ADHD. Lots of people would struggle with those things, but the level to how much it affects you would make it something that is an ADHD trait.

EMMA- Okay, and it’s harder when it’s cold and it’s dark and you’re feeling a bit low. We’re coming in to the Christmas period now, as an ADHDer how do you deal with that? Is that a good thing or is that just more executive function stuff to be done?

HAYLEY- I think for me mostly it’s a really good thing, it’s a really joyous thing and it’s like a real highlight of the winter time that makes those dark days and cold less depressing. So, I find it really joyous and how glittery everything is in terms of clothes.

EMMA- Oh yeah, you love your glittery clothes, don’t you?

HAYLEY- I do. I don’t like the itchiness. I was thinking about that about winter as well, the itchy jumpers.

EMMA- I can’t do itchy jumpers at all. I really struggle with layering in the winter and I can’t wear big heavy knits. I have to wear light clothes underneath and then a big coat or something.

HAYLEY- Exactly. And I also struggle with temperature regulation, so that extreme difference from, say, walking in the freezing cold to then going on the Underground, and I’m just ripping off layers and hats and scarves and hoping for the best that I don’t lose anything along the way.

EMMA- Hayley, what’s the best Christmas present this year to buy someone with ADHD?

HAYLEY- Oh, I don’t know. I would say it would depend on what their special interest is.

EMMA- What would be the best present this year to buy a Hayley with ADHD?

HAYLEY- So, I’m getting married next year so I’ve asked for a planner, that’s a nice planner about weddings, because I hope it will keep me on the organisational straight and narrow. But my true answer is it’s back to the shiny, glittery things, so I’ve asked for some nice makeup that I wouldn’t usually treat myself to that is pink and sparkly.

EMMA- Going back to the planner, will you actually use the planner?

HAYLEY- [Laughs] I feel so seen. Probably not [laughter]. It’ll be a lovely empty planner that I can put in my memory box.

MUSIC- Theme music.

EMMA- Hello, this is Access All. I’m Emma Tracey. Please do get in touch with me, I love to hear from you. You can email [email protected], and you can find us on social media, we’re on X and Instagram @BBCAccessAll. You can subscribe to us, if you haven’t already, hit that big subscribe button. In the UK do so on BBC Sounds, and anywhere else in the world you can find us wherever you get your podcasts.

If you were watching the budget you’ll have heard the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, say this about Motability:

RACHEL- The Motability scheme was set up to protect the most vulnerable, not to subsidise the least on a Mercedes Benz [hear hear]. And so I am making reforms that will reduce generous taxpayer subsidies and Motability have confirmed that they will remove luxury vehicles from their scheme [hear hear] getting the scheme back to its original purpose of offering cost-effective leases to disabled people [hear hear].

EMMA- It’s a surprisingly statement considering all the chatter there has been recently about potential changes to the scheme, which allows disabled people to lease cars using the enhanced mobility bit of their disability benefits. It was thought that tax changes might mean that vehicles would cost up to £3,000 more than before, but that doesn’t seem to have quite happened as expected. Emma Vogelmann, the co-CEO of disability charity, Transport for All, is here to chat me through it. Hi, Emma.

EMMA V- Hi there, thank you for having me.

EMMA- We just heard Rachel Reeves there. Break down to me what she actually said in her short speech about Motability today.

EMMA V- I think what’s more important is not on what Rachel Reeves did say but on what she didn’t say. So, in the budget announcement she did not say that in fact VAT exemptions on some Motability vehicles will be taken away. So, it is included in the full document of the budget that’s been announced since Rachel Reeves spoke.

EMMA- Okay. Tell me what you know about that, which vehicles?

EMMA V- To be honest it’s still a little bit unclear. What we are seeing is that it could be based on the type of adaptations that are needed to the vehicle. Again, we’re not completely sure on that. But one thing that we are concerned, based on what we’re seeing, is could this create a hierarchy of disabilities where some adapted vehicles or some vehicles on the scheme overall are given that VAT exemption and some aren’t?

EMMA- So, maybe someone who can’t reach the pedals and needs hand controls might be at a disadvantage to someone who doesn’t need an adaptation?

EMMA V- At this point that’s still unclear in terms of if it’s going to be based on what types of adaptations are needed. But we do know that it’s not going to be a consistent VAT exemption across all Motability vehicles anymore.

EMMA- Why do you think they’ve taken this road where it’s not quite as expected, but there are going to be some VAT exemptions lifted?

EMMA V- Well, one thing that I can be hopeful of is that the pressure that was put on the Chancellor by Transport for All and the coalition of organisations that we worked with to send a letter to the Chancellor we can only hope that that in some part worked, in that it applied pressure to not take away VAT exemption altogether. However, what we are very much concerned about is how this is going to play out in practice; and we’re still trying to get information on what that’s going to look like.

EMMA- All right. And the removal of some brands of car from the scheme what’s Transport of All’s take on that?

EMMA V- What’s so important to remember is that the money that a disabled person would spend to get a more luxury vehicle is their own money. I think there is still a lot of misinformation around where that money is coming from to get a disabled person a more luxury vehicle if that is their choice and they can afford to do so. Then I think what is so important to remember is that disabled people are incredibly limited when it comes to transport options, so we want to have everyone be able to make the choices that they want to but without this rhetoric that it’s coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket.

EMMA- Emma Vogelmann from Transport for All, thank you so much for your immediate reaction to the budget. And this is a subject we will most certainly be coming back to in the future.

EMMA V- Thank you so much for having me.

EMMA- With me today for the newsy bits from the week is Hayley Clarke. Hayley is an education journalist, also used to be a teacher, is neurodivergent herself, she has great chat, she’s a festival queen. We love having Hayley. Very welcome back, Hayley.

HAYLEY- What an intro! Thank you so much.

EMMA- You’re very welcome. All fully deserved. Let’s talk about some of the news, and maybe some of the lesser spotted news this week. Because a House of Lords special inquiry committee has been actually looking at the Autism Act from 2009 and how it’s played out and how it’s been doing. This is interesting because that’s such a long time ago and autism and how we think about it and how we categorise it has changed so much. But what has this committee found?

HAYLEY- I think education, absolutely across society I think people have a much better understanding of autism now than maybe 2009. But actually what the House of Lords have found in this special inquiry committee report is that although 16 years has passed and the Autism Act was a critical step forward in the recognition of autistic people, actually what they say in the report is that successive governments have failed to deliver real change for autistic people.

EMMA- Okay. So, what have they failed to do?

HAYLEY- So, some statistics that they point to in their key findings, they say that autistic people are being held back from living

fulfilling lives and from having an inclusive future in society. And some of the statistics are that there’s more than 200,000 people waiting for an autism assessment. Thousands of autistic children and young people are unhappy at school or out of school all together. And then quite a key statistic here is that only about three in ten autistic people are in work, which is compared with five in ten disabled people, and eight in ten non-disabled people, so a real difference there in terms of employment and access to accessible workplaces for autistic people.

EMMA- And why has this report come out now? There is an Autism Strategy but it’s coming to end, isn’t it?

HAYLEY- Yes. So, the five-year Autism Strategy expires in July, so I’m going to be keeping a close eye on what comes next. And also the next steps with this I believe are that the government has two months to respond to the findings of this report. So, it will be interesting to see. And that sort of coincides in terms of schools with we’re expecting in the New Year there to be big changes in the SEND system in schools as well. It’s something that as a team we’re really keeping a close eye on, and the whole community of disability and neurodivergence and education as well is wondering, like, what is this government going to do in this space.

EMMA- I mean, it’s hard to keep across all these different white papers and strategies and everything, isn’t it? What do you do?

HAYLEY- It is really hard. And actually that makes me think of how I came to know about this report. So, sort of separate to my work I found out about this on social media through some of the autistic content creators and different neurodivergent content creators and activists in this space. And actually they’ve made a real big difference in the work of this report, so much so that they’ve been thanked in the report for helping to make it more accessible for people to respond. So, that’s Charli Clement, Lou Chandler, who many people will know is Neurodivergent Lou on Instagram, Georgia Holliday and Chelsea Webster, because obviously things like government reports can be quite long, quite complicated, quite filled with difficult jargon and actually they felt that it was meaning that some autistic people didn’t find it accessible to respond to. So, those creators helped to make it – I really love they had a little frog in their branding and it

was the frog that initially got my attention – the report that they’ve released on Sunday, the House of Lords committee includes an easy read version with simpler language and with visual aids as well. But the content creators that really spearheaded the actually hearing from autistic people. And that was one of the findings that the report found is how important it is to hear from autistic people themselves, both in what isn’t working and in what they would like to see in terms of support going forward. Not only did they get thanked in the House of Lords report, they’ve also been told that the number of responses to a select committee inquiry has set a parliamentary record.

EMMA- Wow! The community helping itself to move things forward.

HAYLEY- Absolutely.

EMMA- The internet does work for good.

HAYLEY- There’s obviously a lot of various emotions, like 16 years is a very long time to have a government committee saying not enough has changed or has anything changed for autistic people. But actually what I did see in one of their Instagram stories was that they wanted to focus on hope and hope for changing in the future, and absolutely that representation within the community in terms of making those positive changes. So, I’ll be closely watching to see what the government’s response is and what happens next.

MUSIC- We’re not just a podcast. Find Access All on social media, and read our articles on the BBC News website.

EMMA- Mark Mardell, former BBC editor, was stopped from boarding a Turkish Airlines flight without a letter from his doctor because he’s got Parkinson’s disease. That happened in late October, but Mark has not been happy with the response from the airline and others so far, so he’s taking it further. And he’s here to tell me more. Hi, Mark.

MARK- Hi there.

EMMA- Tell me what happened to you in late October.

MARK- Well, I’d just had a wonderful road trip with my eldest son around the Sea of Marmara in Turkey. We came back rather early because we had to get the car back by 7 o’clock and my flight wasn’t till half 11, something like that. [Clears throat] excuse me, it’s one of the signs of Parkinson’s is a weak voice. Anyway, and his flight was at 9 o’clock somewhere

else. And we got there and I said, ‘I’m feeling a bit tired so can I sit down. Because of my voice can you talk for me and explain that I needed assisted boarding?’ So, he went off and then came back and said, ‘You need a letter to fly’. We assumed that meant to prove that I did have Parkinson’s, which seemed a bit strange. But no, it was actually because it’s the one condition they ban from flying without a letter. It’s not quite true actually; if you want a stretcher you need a letter. It doesn’t seem that exceptional, I think that’s reasonable. And also, which doesn’t seem so reasonable, if you’re an autistic adult travelling alone you need a letter. Parkinson’s is the only condition where you need a letter at all to fly.

EMMA- Why do you think they’ve chosen Parkinson’s? Any thoughts on why they’ve picked on Parkinson’s?

MARK- I don’t know if it’s sheer elderly prejudice from ages back or whether it’s something new. I don’t know. Maybe the CEO had somebody with Parkinson’s sitting next to him and he didn’t like him on a flight or something. I’ve no idea. I’d love to ask them.

EMMA- I have put in an email to them, Mark, but I haven’t heard back from them.

MARK- Nobody has. Can I say as well, another thing that’s just happened today is I had a communication from a journalist from The New York Times who said he’s heard of something similar with a guy about a year ago who was asked to go to the medical centre. Well, I didn’t want to do that because it was outside the airport and I thought it would be a pain getting back in and everything and I couldn’t really do it on my own. But he was asked to pay $300 for this letter, so I do wonder if it’s a scam.

EMMA- Was it reasonable? Did everybody get angry? Was there shouting?

MARK- At the time no, I don’t think there was shouting. But a woman came up and I basically tried to convince her I didn’t have Parkinson’s [laughter] because I wanted to get on the flight. Which was a bit of a white lie. It wasn’t just the ban, which is outrageous and is discriminatory and should be scrapped, it’s the way I was treated. I mean, absolute contempt. The woman seemed delighted, gleeful almost to ban me and say, ‘It’s for your own good, it’s for your own

good, you can’t travel because you’ve got Parkinson’s, look at you, you’re shaking’. I don’t really shake. I probably was then because I was a bit cross. And then she said, ‘I’ve taken your bags off the airline so go over there and find them’. I was staggering around four hours on my own looking for these bags, where I was meant to pick the bags up. No help at all until a kind person, a Turkish American woman, helped me find the right place. About seven hours later from that I got the bags back. So, it was a bit of an ordeal really.

EMMA- Yeah, how did you feel? What kinds of emotions did go through your head?

MARK- I felt I was being stoic, but that’s only because I nearly burst into tears about five times [laughs]. I was on the verge of it because it’s just being left alone on your own, so you have to get on with it. And the other thing is that obviously I’m new to this disabled lark, if you like, and I never thought I’d end up like this and describe myself as disabled. And when you’ve lived with it all your life I’m sure it’s very bad in another way, but for me it’s something new so it’s quite difficult to come to terms with, quite difficult knowing that you seem diminished in other people’s eyes.

EMMA- It’s a month on now, have you got any apologies? What’s happened since then?

MARK- Well, I complained as soon as I got back, to the CEO and various other people. I heard nothing from them at all. I had to fill in a form about compensation or at least getting my money back. The only real contact has been through that form. And then when I said this and said, ‘Look, you haven’t answered any of my stream of complaints, the CEO hasn’t answered any of my stream of complaints’, they came back and said, ‘We’re sorry, hope you feel better soon, hope you recover soon’ not apparently knowing that Parkinsons is currently incurable.

EMMA- And that’s not very nice to hear either, hey?

MARK- No, it’s pretty disgraceful. And so then I just started this week mounting a campaign to get the attention of the CEO, asking people to write in to him.

EMMA- And the Civil Aviation Authority have also given you in writing a letter that says that it was unlawful what they did as well?

MARK- Yeah, they say it was unlawful. They’re seeking top-level management meetings with Turkish Airlines. They’re being part of the review of airlines’ prejudice towards disabled people which will happen next year, and so they are seeking some sort of redress. What I don’t know yet is, because I’m a one-man band on this, I haven’t really had time to dig into it, what power the CAA does have. They can rap people over the knuckles; whether they can actually do anything. So, I wonder whether Lord Blunkett’s suggestion is it’s up to individual airlines to say you can’t travel.

EMMA- David Blunkett’s sounds like quite a big ask for their landing rights to be taken away, doesn’t it?

MARK- I don’t think it’s going to happen but it’s nice for him to suggest that and to have the support. I mean, you will if enough people write to the airports and say that this should happen.

EMMA- Well, Mark Mardell, I’m very sorry that this has happened to you. You’ve been so impressively dogged about it. An awful lot of us disabled people would have given up because, as you know well, it’s part of a stream of things that happen that you’re supposed to deal with. So, well done for keeping continuing to push forward. You can hear of Mark Mardell and a couple of his other friends with Parkinson’s on the award winning Movers and Shakers podcast. And thank you so much for telling me your story.

MARK- Thank you very much for having me.

EMMA- It’s Scam Safe week here on the BBC, and that’s a week of programmes and roadshows arming us with the knowledge that we need to protect ourselves from fraud. When you think of cybercrime you might think of an autistic person being good at the techy hacking side of things, but new research from Trading Standards says that neurodivergent people, which include autistic people of course, are 50% more likely to be victims of fraud than the general population, and they’re also more likely to be retargeted. Now, Holly Foxcroft is autistic and she lives with, she says, thriving ADHD. She’s a cybersecurity expert and she’s here to talk us through this. Holly, spell out to me why neurodivergent people might be more likely to be victims of fraud and scams.

HOLLY- So, it’s not being neurodivergent that can be that predetermining factor as to why a person

that cognitive impairments or characteristics in which adversaries, so the cybercriminals, will exploit and take advantage of. Some of those characteristics is that literal way of thinking, but if we look at other characteristics of other neurodivergences such as ADHD, then it can be through to that impulsiveness. And by way of scams the way that they are articulated is always with a sense of urgency, you’ve got to do this now. And unfortunately then the people who have that characteristic of poor decision making or that sense of urgency and not able to socially read what’s actually happening they’re more then likely to be able to fall for the scams that focus on them.

EMMA- What ways can people be repeatedly targeted? Why is this also a thing? Because they’re 44% more likely to be retargeted.

HOLLY- The cybercriminals are extremely aware of what human vulnerabilities are and what works. These individuals really craft their trade in the form of being a criminal and exploiting humans, so they know what works. And if there is a tactic that is going to work, such as that sense of urgency, then they’re going to exploit that. Now, individuals like myself we like to share our experiences to help other people, both through awareness and people that are going through the same challenges, and all we’re really doing is in some ways we’re showing in which way, of how we are in vulnerable in that people can exploit us.

EMMA- Oh wow! So, by raising awareness you’re also raising that awareness to the criminals as well?

HOLLY- This is due to not being able to read social situations. And when it comes to cybercriminals they’re going to attack them in different ways. After they’ve recognised that one vulnerability that that human then falls for of course they’re just going to find other ways that they can re-exploit, but just through different ways and measures.

EMMA- The other really interesting thing from this research is that the neurodivergent people who were victims of fraud had higher financial impacts and higher emotional and health impacts after being targeted, so it affected them a lot more than other people. We were talking when we were chatting a few days ago about when someone with ADHD loses their bank card for the 20th time and the shame and the fear and the anxiety

around that. Does that play in to why people have these high emotional impacts, why they feel so terrible after this has happened?

HOLLY- Yeah, absolutely. So, by definition neurodiversity means how we all think, learn and process information differently. We’re all neurodiverse; it’s that 15% to 20% - which I would like to say actually is higher – is neurodivergent. And that means that we think differently, we learn differently, but we also process information differently. So, that processing of that emotional trauma that we then go through because of what’s happened to us is of course a lot different to how we would say another individual would be able to understand and conceptualise what’s happened to them, but also be able to process that trauma in a way that is natural to them. For a neurodivergent individual it can be a lot more difficult to be able to even articulate what has happened due to their poor executive functioning or by way of actually understanding what has happened and why it has happened to them, and why somebody has particularly targeted them as a vulnerable individual. Then of course there is that shame part, and this comes a lot with cybercrime in general anyway. We don’t want to say that we’ve been scammed because it could be so glaring obvious to other people that they wouldn’t fall for it, why did you. Particularly for a neurodivergent individual that will also have shame placed upon them because they can’t complete tasks that maybe others so freely can and easily can that it can be harder for us to admit what’s happened, or even recognise that we’ve been exploited.

EMMA- To be fair, scams are getting more and more sophisticated and more and more hard to spot. Can you talk us through some of the types of scams that are happening? And of course it changes all the time as well.

HOLLY- It does, it changes all of the time because of the speed at which technology is accelerating, so that widens the attack surface. One is where a cybercriminal will get access to your payment card information from an online retailer. They would then call the customer, read out the long card payment to them to say, look this is us and this is how you can trust us, what we’re going to do is we need to refund you, we can see you’ve made this purchase, what we’d like to do is refund that back to you. It then says, I’m going to send you a very time sensitive notification to your bank, and your bank will

pop up with that, ‘is this you?’ capture, to make the payment. Where it is the payment, but the victim doesn’t realise that’s to make the payment, not to receive the money back.

EMMA- Oh, okay. So, it’s a really time sensitive thing, it’s going to disappear in x number of seconds, and what you don’t realise is you’re paying them money rather than getting money back.

HOLLY- Exactly that. So, manipulating if that technology feature and again, like I said earlier, playing on that urgency that you don’t get time to socially understand what’s happening to you, and playing on that cognitive part of you that is where your executive functioning or your impulsivity you just want to get that through. There’s also a reason to say here that social interactions for some neurodivergent people can be really uncomfortable, and if someone’s on the phone to you you’re desperate to just get off the phone entirely.

HAYLEY- I was just thinking about the urgency, Holly. Because it was a hotel for my friend’s wedding, and I had an email from the place where I’d booked the hotel, well someone pretending to be them saying, you haven’t paid for this hotel, if you don’t do it within 24 hours you’re going to lose your spot in the hotel. And I remember I was on holiday at the time and I panicked and went all the way through to the payment page, and then said it to my partner and he was like, ‘Didn’t we already pay for that hotel?’ and I had completely forgotten. So, we didn’t fall for it because he remembered that we’d already paid for it, and obviously my mind had immediately erased that [laughs].

EMMA- Yeah.

HAYLEY- So, Holly, what do you think about solutions? How can neurodivergent people try and avoid scams? Or what can they do if they have fallen victim to a scam, how can they get help?

HOLLY- So, first of all, as I mentioned with tooling and technology evolving, it’s also there to support us. It’s not just there that it can be used against us. And there are some fantastic initiatives out there that can help with the neurodivergent brain in limiting where that attack surfaces. If you are impulsive, for example, it’s things like ad popup blockers and decision time makers where it slows everything down or clearly explains things to you. There are some fantastic security awareness free guidance that you can get online. Or

you can reach out to any cybersecurity charities that are run by your regional organised police stations, fantastic resources in understanding how to help and support vulnerable people in our communities.

EMMA- Holly, that’s been so helpful. Thank you so much, Holly Foxcroft.

HOLLY- Thank you.

EMMA- That is it for another episode of Access All. Thank you very much, Hayley Clarke, for being with me during this episode.

HAYLEY- Thank you for having me. I’m so glad to be back.

EMMA- Thanks to you for listening. You can get in touch with me, email [email protected]. Tell me what you want me to talk about, tell me what’s going on in your life, tell me about the guests you want me to speak to. You can find us on social media as well, we’re on X and Instagram @BBCAccessAll. Thanks for listening. See you later, bye.