Their grilling will be conducted by Labour MP John Mann (pictured), who described the pay at the firm as ‘grotesque’
The bosses in charge of Motability face a grilling from MPs over the disabled car firm’s bumper salaries and enormous cash pile next month.
Chairman Neil Johnson is being hauled back from a New Year trip to the United States for the showdown on March 5.
He and £1.7million chief executive Mike Betts will be quizzed over the £2.4billion amassed by the car scheme for the disabled, which the Mail revealed this week.
Their grilling will be conducted by Labour MPs Frank Field – who famously branded BHS tycoon Sir Philip Green the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ during a similar inquisition in 2016 – and John Mann, who described the pay at the firm as ‘grotesque’.
The inquiry, conducted jointly by the Treasury select committee and Work and Pensions committee, is one of three probes triggered by a Daily Mail investigation into Motability.
The Government has vowed to claw back the ‘spare’ £2.4billion the firm has stockpiled. If returned to taxpayers, it could build seven new hospitals.
The Mail discovered the company has been saving £200million a year from mobility benefits. Motability is a ‘not for profit’ company, yet those who run it earn vast sums. The £1.7million earned last year by 55-year-old Mr Betts – who lives in a £5million riverside apartment overlooking Tower Bridge, banks with Coutts and enjoys Caribbean holidays – is 11 times the Prime Minister’s salary.
Chairman Neil Johnson, pictured with his wife, is being hauled back from a New Year trip to the United States for the showdown on March 5
David Gilman, 65, the firm’s former second-in-command, was paid £1.1million in 2016, while his successor Matthew Hamilton-James, 44, earned £550,000 last year. Along with chairman Mr Johnson, on £173,000, and director Neill Thomas, earning £64,000, the executives enjoy luxury lifestyles.
Yesterday Mr Field said: ‘It is an affront to the disabled. It is not like these people are running a county police force or Carillion. Cars for the disabled is bread and butter stuff. All that is required is some very intelligent bookkeeping … We will be keen to ask the directors some searching questions. The chairman is flying back from the States to make the meeting.’
David Gilman (with wife Victoria) left Motability in September 2016 and earned an estimated £1.1million in his final year in the job
Mr Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, added: ‘For an organisation set up to benefit disabled people to be paying its chief executive £1.7million is frankly a misuse of public money.
‘The money given to the Motability scheme exists to improve the lives of disabled people … The fact that those at the top have been skimming off the excess is an insult.’
Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey has praised the Mail and ‘freedom of the press’ for lifting the lid on the scandal.
Motability has defended its reserves of £2.4billion as ‘appropriate and proportionate’. The firm argues it stockpiles cash as a ‘financial shock absorber’ in case the scheme falls on hard times. It says its executives are the best in the business and deserve their pay, which consists mainly of bonuses they only get if disabled customers express high levels of customer satisfaction.
The company says it ‘warmly welcomes’ scrutiny from Parliament.