Fast forward to this winter and Labour has set out plans to end £300m a year of tax breaks and remove premium brands from the scheme. Rachel Reeves even mimicked rightwing memes with her language when she announced it: Motability “was set up to protect the most vulnerable, not to subsidise the lease on a Mercedes-Benz”. Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch said this week the Tories would ban conditions such as anxiety and ADHD outright from being eligible.

If 2025 has been the year “welfare reform” reentered the lexicon of British politics, few events sum it up more than the assault on Motability, a policy that has been a lifeline for disabled people for almost 50 years with little fuss.

This is partly a story about valid scrutiny of a multibillion-pound body handling public money. There has been a large growth in Motability recently – with the customer base rising by about 200,000 in two years to 815,000 as the nation’s health has declined and disability benefit claims increased. Similarly, it is fair to question high executive pay and the company’s reportedly large cash reserves.

But it is far more a story about how a mix of misinformation, prejudice and insecurity has reignited an all-too-familiar fire: when living standards are stalling and public services failing, society turns on a minority said to be having it easy at taxpayer expense.

From asylum seekers staying in hotels while locals struggle to pay the rent to benefit claimants driving a new car as workers miss the bus, this year has seen a fixation on what certain – notably marginalised or disadvantaged – groups supposedly get.

We are in an era that is in many ways defined by a sense the state no longer provides what the public needs: not just the NHS and schools but libraries, social care, parks and so much else. Add in the fact the squeezed middle is being taxed more and millions of others continue to struggle for the basics, and the idea that there are disabled people getting luxury cars handed to them naturally fuels resentment. That’s only compounded when large sections of the media and political class propagate the now common idea that many of those in receipt of support are not really disabled (or for that matter, tax-paying workers).

But is any of it actually true? I spoke to experts about the popular claim that the Motability scheme is easy to exploit. “Accessing Motability requires extensive applications, medical evidence, invasive examination, testing and proof of your impairment, and reapplication for support every few years,” said Sophia Kleanthous from Transport for All. “We support many disabled people who have been wrongly denied support, because they’ve struggled to prove that they meet this high bar.”

What about the idea someone can get a car because of allegedly minor conditions, such as acne? “Government data shows there are just five people claiming enhanced mobility [of the gateway benefit, personal independence payments] for acne,” says James Taylor from Scope. “The stats don’t show co-conditions, so those people could have multiple other disabilities too.” That means the handful of people with acne who are eligible for a Motability car – but are not necessarily leasing one – could have, say, arthritis as well.

The British Association of Dermatologists also confirmed to me that there are ways acne might impact mobility, including rare forms that can cause joint pain. GB News pundits, funnily enough, aren’t medically qualified.

That disabled people should not get a luxury car on the scheme might similarly sound reasonable at first. But take a look at the data and only 6% of Motability’s fleet is made up of non-economy brands, while the cost to the taxpayer is exactly the same due to the fact disabled people already pay the extra fee themselves.

“We all choose a car that meets our requirements – say, one that fits the kids. Disabled people do that too,” says Kleanthous. “We might need an adapted car with enough height to carry us in our wheelchair or a boot that self closes. Some accessibility features are only on higher-spec vehicles. But the biggest issue is choice. Motability allows us to have a car we need, but we should still be able to choose to pay more to have the car we want.”

Look ahead to the new year and more of this is on the horizon, from the government’s plan for special educational needs and disabilities (Send) amid talk of parents abusing the system, to Wes Streeting’s review of the supposed “over-diagnosis” of mental health issues in light of rising sickness benefit claims.

Such ideas appear to be salvation to Keir Starmer’s ailing administration, but it may well find that these only add to its problems. Just as with immigration, capitulating to critics of Motability will never be enough. The goalposts always move: first the issue is said to be disabled people having luxury cars, then tax breaks, then any car at all.

There is a way out of this: raising living standards, well-funded public services, and a spirited defence of the safety net and those who rely on it. It will also require an honest conversation about why we are collectively getting sicker and addressing the underlying causes rather than stubbornly assuming there is an epidemic of healthy people faking. That is not a quick fix, but it is the only one that will help heal an increasingly broken social fabric. Making it harder for a disabled person to leave the house is a dark and false solution to a genuine crisis.

• Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist