It looks as if the Cycle to Work Scheme is going to be targeted in the up and coming budget, reducing the total spend allowable & trying to bring it back to providing financial assistance for commuters rather than for high-end non-commuter bikes.
It's liable to have an impact on the struggling bike industry as a whole I suspect.
I was just saying last week to a mate that I’m amazed they’ve not mentioned scrapping or capping it yet. I was so sure they were going to change it in the budget that I just placed an order last week for a load of stuff to get in there before the budget, just in case!
It might be the first time in my life I’ve correctly predicted something.
Does that mean the RRP of bikes will reduce by 50% over night ?
trying to bring it back to providing financial assistance for commuters rather than for high-end non-commuter bikes.
The whole way it's set up almost prevents that in the first place.
You can't use it if you're on minimum wage or if you're self employed, it disproportionately benefits higher rate tax payers so it's hardly surprising that many people are bending the rules on it a bit while the people it's supposed to support can't access it in the first place.
It's also been hijacked by half a dozen different firms all providing their version of it and skimming their take off the top. Definitely needs a shake up but capping the amount available is not the way, that just makes it more difficult to buy an e-bike which is what the majority of commuters will want.
From the article above:
One government figure told the newspaper: “Cycle to work should be about helping ordinary commuters switch to greener travel, not giving tax breaks to high earners buying £4,000 e-bikes for weekend rides in the Surrey Hills. Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for luxury leisure.”
Basically echoes my opinions on the matter. While I don’t agree with everything that “Rachel from accounts” says or does, I am basically onboard with this despite it’s unpopularity with the N+1 crowd…
[braces for onslaught of opinions]
Quite right to cap, but needs to be open to those on the minimum wage.
Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for luxury leisure.”
Wait until they hear about Benefit In Kind and salary sacrifice on cars! And no-one asks if you're using that solely for commuting...
Actually it's insane, I could have got a £50000 car on a 4 year finance / salary sacrifice scheme with no questions asked but the hoops I had to jump through to get a £5000 bike on a 1-year term were way more onerous.
Glad I got it through before the budget.
Remember when C2W was a relatively new concept and Boardman made a point of selling several bikes (road, MTB and hybrid IIRC) that came in at or under the £1k cap with pretty reasonable specs? Those things were everywhere in the 2000-2010s…
The industry can cut its cloth to suit the environment, those that can’t fail unfortunately. But also we shouldn’t be propping up an entire sector with a tax break for a quarter of a century.
Wait until they hear about Benefit In Kind and salary sacrifice on cars! And no-one asks if you're using that solely for commuting...
We’ve got one of those schemes at work. You can get life’s essentials on it like Apple Watches and £6k sofas. The bit I can’t quite get my head around is that these items bought on the salary sacrifice scheme cost way more than to just buy them in the shop. There absolutely no financial benefit to using them.
I think that is fair enough, but no reference in the article to what the new limit will be. I could really do with knowing that as I was planning to get a new commuter bike, probably around the £3k price. Not really in a position to order right now but, if I thought limit was going to drop below that, I would try and get something sorted super quick.
I've always found the scheme laughable when someone on £60k or £80k+ (and often moaning about benefits scroungers) gets themselves a nice new £5k bike with a hefty discount that never ever gets ridden to their place of work.
I assume the tax breaks on cars will similarly be cut? oh of course not........
There absolutely no financial benefit to using them.
There is if it's a choice between using that or going to one of the payday lenders charging you 99.9% interest and late payment fees!
Capping C2W is a stupid idea. Back when it was set up, £1000 would buy you a really decent bike. £1000 now barely scratches the surface, certainly doesn't get you a decent e-bike. So you need a scheme with a high limit (£6000 or so) but something that is open to the self-employed, low wage, and even WFH. You could WFH but do client visits for example. Technically C2W doesn't cover that because the "main use" of the bike should be riding to and from your place of work.
I worked for a council for a while, they had C2W (the usual shite, £1000 limit, must use Halfords etc) and they were so terrified of being seen as providing a perk to their employees that they had an extra clause all of their own. Must use it to ride to work a minimum of 3 days per week. This was post-Covid where the office had been downsized so much that no-one did more than 2 days in. Ludicrous.
Naturally the car sacrifice scheme had no such conditions.
I wouldn’t be that surprised to see all salary sacrifice schemes abolished (or more technically- subject to tax) over the life of this parliament. It’s a way to increase tax without seeming to break manifesto commitments, is at least superficially “progressive” and might actually buy them some credit from those who don’t look beyond headlines. Except for pensions all of them seem to have created an artificial market which actually dilutes the value the incentive was designed for.
The point of cycle to work was to encourage people to, you know, cycle. To work.
Nobody needs a 6k bike for that. A quick look on Halfords and 1500 quid will get you anything from a carbon framed Tiagra Hydro disc road bike to a Carrera E bike to a Grx alloy gravel bike. If none of those will get you to work work you need to re enter the real world.
The scheme is broken. It should not favour the higher tax bracket earners, it's totally arse about face, they do not need access to it, it should be heavily weighted to lower earners. It needs a total rethink.
Absolutely agree about the minimum wage barrier; it's disgraceful that it's not been addressed to remove an obstacle for a huge number of people who could benefit massively.
There are a few decent points made in this article: https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/how-fix-cycle-work-scheme
I think the general point is that the scheme is not being used for what it was designed - providing people with discounted bikes for using to ride to work in order to increase general health and cut car usage (or if it is, the people using it for that are a vanishingly small proportion of the overall users). So it's perfectly reasonable that it's cut or scrapped, and I say that as a two-time beneficiary. It's been a lark for a while but the game's up.
As for other salary sacrifice schemes, there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here of how they work. For many of them you do pay tax on them as a perk, that's exactly what Benefit In Kind taxation is.
People who think you need to spend over £1K to get a bike that you can ride to work are in an entitled place.
Drop it down to £1,000 and ensure it gets used for actually riding to work. All of these dodgy tax breaks that only higher earners can benefit from need to go as they just promote inequality.
IMO the whole salary sacrifice benefits scheme for all things, not just C2W bikes, needs looking at... Those earning the most making greater savings, on often essential luxury goods/services is dodgy as hell, while those earning near minimum wage are extremely limited to what they can do on the scheme because their take home pay must still be at least minimum wage.
There is currently an MP brave enough to face and admit the real changes that need making to the tax system overall, cutting little bits around the edges (C2W) might keep a few of the RW press happy but overall it makes little difference.
Across the UK how many people use the C2W scheme compared with those that have car allowances and 45p per mile claim backs?
Hands up, I've had both.
More money to be saved via car tax changes but the daily heil and its war on the motorist lobby won't let those things happen because MP's fear a front page.
It's also been hijacked by half a dozen different firms all providing their version of it and skimming their take off the top.
as with so so many govt. schemes. The boss of the govt. funded Motability Scheme earns £750k for selling cars by set rules to captured consumers. At least it’s down from approx. £4m a few years ago, staggering.
Trough
Snout
But I do get some changes to C2W et al are overdue. There will be impacts though as less of the more pricey emtbs get sold, the price, I expect, will go up.
giving tax breaks to high earners buying £4,000 e-bikes for weekend rides in the Surrey Hills
That's £4k after the tax saving, I assume
People who think you need to spend over £1K to get a bike that you can ride to work are in an entitled place.
I would have agreed with this in the past, but as crazy legs pointed out early on - commuter eebs could be genuinely useful for a lot of people.
Across the UK how many people use the C2W scheme compared with those that have car allowances and 45p per mile claim backs?
Tne car allowance is to cover cost of performing a business related activity in your own car (depreciation, insurance, petrol, diesel, VED and the multitude of taxes within). It’s hardly a tax break is it but you could happily forgo and not claim it back?
C2W on the other hand is not delivering what it intended. It’s a subsidy for the better off to get expensive bikes (£3k for a commuter bike) at a huge discount and save on NI for employers (which is why companies participate).
A better alternative would be a voucher contribution for the low paid towards a bike either new or secondhand.
I'll be absolutely fuming if they put a cap on it. I've recently moved companies and this is the first one I've worked at that have offered C2W with a decent (5k) budget. Was planning to finally get an ebike in January following probation sign off when the scheme is opened up to me as an employee
Have spent the past 4 months getting really excited to finally replace my nearly 11 year old specialized enduro with a new orbea wild eeb and biding my time for it, honestly, as someone who voted for labour 18 months ago, they've done nothing that has directly benefitted me or improved my QoL, all I see is taxes going up, CoL going up, economy getting worse, benefits of being a higher earner worse which lets be honest, 50k salary today is what 30k was 10 years ago, morale slowing down, growth down, everything seems way worse than it was under the tories and even they were corrupt to the core, first and last time they got my vote, honestly.
I only used C2W once, and that was when it had the £1k cap, I got a set of Exposure lights and some Endura trousers from Evans.
It was back when you could buy sale stuff too and use discount codes.
I think my MaxxD and Diablo with the sale price, BC discount and C2W tax & NI breaks ended up costing me about £200...
I do agree that the original purpose of the scheme has been lost - and barriers to lower income should be removed - even if that means imposing a lower limit for minimum wage etc. - you could set limits at £1,000 and £2,000.
The scheme is a bit broken, but I think it would make more sense to taper the saving % in the opposite direction to favour low earners, or maybe cap it at basic rate as suggested above. But also:
I'd prefer to see it badged as a green travel scheme and not tied to work commuting and acknowledge the general benefits of riding more whatever the context. Working patterns are so diverse that it no longer makes sense to tie it to work commuting.
As a budget measure it's going to save a few tens of millions at best, which is peanuts. Weighed against the balance of health and travel benefits (beyond work commuting context), the net benefit of the change will be negligible. It'll certainly please some culture warriors, which is sad.
I think that is fair enough, but no reference in the article to what the new limit will be.
This is the problem with cryptic pre-briefings and bouncing ideas off public by leaking ideas to Journalists. Reinstating a sensible Cap makes sense, more importantly enabling access for lower incomes and maybe even preventing higher rate earners from accessing the scheme all together might not be bad ideas.
As for setting a suitable Cap the old inflation calculator say £1k in 1999 is £1,926.69 in 2025 money so £2k? would seem reasonable today (that would buy a very good commuter bike plus some accessories).
E-bikes might skew things a smidge they weren't really a thing 25 years ago, an E-bike for commuting (i.e. Rigid with load carrying capacity? might justifiably have a Cap of £3k(?)
But the days of people blagging £7-10k E-Dandyhorses on C2W need to end...
Well apparently a Dolan DF5 is available on bike to work! At least the one I saw on Tuesday was bought using the scheme. To be fair, my Brompton T-line is used for more than half its journeys commuting to work and was at the max allowed for our scheme. I’m happy with it too, having had to carry it folded a few times at (c)rush hour on the Elizabeth Line.
A cap of £2k would barely buy an electric Brompton. The sort of bike the scheme is aimed at. I’d restrict the TYPE of bike rather than the cap. Nobody is commuting on a DF5. Here’s one for reference.
I've had it available to me but never used it, the one time I really looked into it was when i wanted a cargo bike to transport small children - the limit at my workplace didn't go high enough as all the available cargo bikes at the time were e-bikes and thus around the £3-4k mark, so I went second hand instead.
As a budget measure it's going to save a few tens of millions at best, which is peanuts. Weighed against the balance of health and travel benefits (being work commuting context), the net benefit of the change will be negligible. It'll certainly please some culture warriors, which is sad.
Fully agree, it's going to play well with the culture war vote that labour seems to have decided is it's core. Perhaps it could be improved so that the purchased bikes are used more for travel than leisure but will the cost of enforcing that actually be worth it? As above you could limit the type of bike purchased, but I guess the question is whether the leisure bikes are getting people out exercising who otherwise would just not purchase a bike at all.
FWIW it could quite strongly effect how I commute - the new trains on the midlands mainline apparently only have 2 bike spaces when regularly we have 5+ people using the current trains. I may be forced to choose between buying an e-folder (**** riding a non-assisted folder up our hill!) or just accepting that it's far cheaper to drive even if the journey sucks.
I've just had another 5k E Bike through work. Don't intend to cycle to work on it. The bike I do cycle to work on was just bought online. As someone who has always paid all taxes though full direct employment I have zero qualms about using the system available to me when I know how much tax has been and still is *offset* by the self employed and 'company directors'. I'll start with massive shiny pick up trucks, which by some very clever government detective work have only been established as a tax fiddle, as well as being driven by total winkers.
How much revenue will it actually bring in?
Or is it a case of every little helps ?
I've used it to buy a few cheapo commuters before for about 500 quid. The only time I felt I was taking the piss was when I bought myself a time trial frameset..that definitely never got cycled to work
I personally don't have an issue with it being capped (even if I had seen an bike in my near future) as the scheme clearly benefits the richer folks in society which makes zero sense
That said, I don't see why it's getting targeted, and not the guy that is getting massive saving on a brand new luxury 60k EV
It's interesting that any conversation about tax is mainly people going "someone needs to pay more tax, but not me"
I used CTW once when it was £1k for my fixed gear commuter (when the scheme first started). £1k didn't cover it so I threw in a few hundred extra - and that wasn't a flashy spec and it had no gears. That's without rack/panniers etc. Just the bike from my LBS. That bike was sold a few years ago. I'm commuting on a 90's MTB.
Was looking at an All road, but what I want will come out above £2k
So what's happening with everyone with luxury EV's then - this is a piddle take as loads of colleagues 'leasing' new EV's on the scheme. Bit unfair when you want to spend £2500 on a bike commuter, and colleagues have £50k cars on lease.
But also we shouldn’t be propping up an entire sector with a tax break for a quarter of a century.
Yeah, we should be handing those tax breaks to foreign companies to allow them to build cars here for three or four years before relocating to the Far East! Or servers for their AI. Or nuclear power plants. Let the bike industry, what's left of it, fail - there's always Halfords.
8 years ago, a reasonably basic gravel bike for commuting, aluminium frame, hydraulic discs, cost me £1700.
For something that you’re going to use every day and for it to be reliable, you do need to spend a bit of money.
However I do also know people who’ve bought their e-mountain bikes through the cycle to work scheme, who work at a car dealership…
People who think you need to spend over £1K to get a bike that you can ride to work are in an entitled place.
A lot of people could genuinely benefit from having an e-cargo bike or a folding e-bike.
I think that's realistic rather than entitled.
I would have agreed with this in the past, but as crazy legs pointed out early on - commuter eebs could be genuinely useful for a lot of people.
So in the past people commuted on a sub £1k bike but now have to have an expensive e-bike to be able to commute.
As for cars, get rid of that too as that is another tax break for the better off only, as are most tax breaks.
Also, as far as I’m aware, the cycle to work scheme was a net saving to the country. What it costs in tax, is more than made up for in health benefits and reduced costs.
I’m not sure it matters much anyway. I suspect that Rachel Reeves is toast, and Keir Starmer is not far behind her.
Also, as far as I’m aware, the cycle to work scheme was a net saving to the country. What it costs in tax, is more than made up for in health benefits and reduced costs.
May well have been at £1,000 with people actually starting to ride a bike. People buying £6k bikes on it will most likely already be cycling so no health benefit at all. That's what happens when you move massively from the original criteria.
So in the past people commuted on a sub £1k bike but now have to have an expensive e-bike to be able to commute.
Most public hire schemes now are electric. Most people do not give the slightest flying **** about "cycling", they don't care about how many gears it's got or how much suspension travel. They just want a cheap reliable way of getting to and from work that doesn't involve car parking fees, train fares or a crowded bus.
And they don't want to arrive in a sweaty mess. E-bikes are incredible for enabling utility cycling.
So in the past people commuted on a sub £1k bike but now have to have an expensive e-bike to be able to commute.
No, there are very likely to be people who wouldn't have wanted to commute on any kind of normal bike, but who might be tempted by an eeb.
So in the past people commuted on a sub £1k bike but now have to have an expensive e-bike to be able to commute.
Er, yes. If we want more people to commute by bike, and I assume that you do as well, then anything that makes it easier for them to do so is likely to help achieve that goal.
be absolutely fuming if they put a cap on it. I've recently moved companies and this is the first one I've worked at that have offered C2W with a decent (5k) budget. Was planning to finally get an ebike in January following probation sign off when the scheme is opened up to me as an employee
Have spent the past 4 months getting really excited to finally replace my nearly 11 year old specialized enduro with a new orbea wild eeb and biding my time for it, honestly, as someone who voted for labour 18 months ago, they've done nothing that has directly benefitted me or improved my QoL, all I see is taxes going up, CoL going up, economy getting worse, benefits of being a higher earner worse which lets be honest, 50k salary today is what 30k was 10 years ago, morale slowing down, growth down, everything seems way worse than it was under the tories and even they were corrupt to the core, first and last time they got my vote, honestly
Quality rant. I'm not sure whether you're saying you're pissed off with labour in general, and so won't vote fir them again, or that you genuinely think it is wrong for them to remove your access to a deeply discounted high end eeb....
I use it every year to stock up on tyres for my £5K commuter (Tripster) which I bought with my own money (left to me by my ol man). And I use them to ride to work! I'm a tax hero, me.
I did buy a bike on a 40% cut when I was on better money about 15 years ago, one of the old CAAD-Xs that were £1K... Did ride it to work a few times. Remember having a stroppy phone call from our finance dept, warning me that there would be checks that I was riding the bike to work. Lol! How would they do that then??! I sold it to a mate before I'd paid it off and bought the Tripster. Cannondale don't make em anymore, but they do make lovely £8K ebikes, which I have one of (bought 2nd hand, no tax breaks).
Er, that's my Cycle Scheme story.
I don’t think the problem is the cycle to work scheme. It’s the fact that HMRC has been deliberately gutted, so people know that they’ve got little to no chance of getting caught.
I am not actually that bothered about how people commute but evidence should be required that they are actually commuting by bike. Where I work no evidence is required at all.
I am not actually that bothered about how people commute but evidence should be required that they are actually commuting by bike. Where I work no evidence is required at all.
I sort of agree. But what if it costs more to obtain such evidence than it saves? Or if the extra administration puts people off the scheme and so reduces the number of people cycling to work?
Interesting reading - definitely sounds like it needs tweaking, rather than ditching. We've bought, oooo, 7 bikes between us on it in the last 15 years, four of which were/are regularly used for commuting, two occasionally used, one has not (but will be when it snows 🙂 ). Mrs Pondo cycles every day now, of which I am immensely proud as neither of us are... athletes, shall I say. 🙂 Wouldn't be happening if she didn't half a half-decent e-bike (£2.5k).
evidence should be required that they are actually commuting by bike. Where I work no evidence is required at all.
Great, let's introduce another admin burden...
Also, what's to stop someone driving to work, parking around the corner, getting the bike out and rolling into the office?
The point of cycle to work was to encourage people to, you know, cycle. To work.
Nobody needs a 6k bike for that. A quick look on Halfords and 1500 quid will get you anything from a...
A few weeks ago I bought a Benno Boost longtail, after about two years of empty promises from my employer saying they were trying to raise their 1k limit. In the end I got so desperate I just had to stump up and buy it retail without using the scheme. With a few basic accessories and the specific panniers it's set me back nearly £4k and it's been used pretty much every day since and approaching 200km, all on sub 5k hilly journeys.
There are not many cheaper options for a longtail ebike that is built to last with quality kit and considering it is meant to cover stuff like lights, outer clothing and helmets, £4k doesn't really stretch far. Obviously a standard ebike hybrid isn't as versatile for carting stuff back and forth from work or grabbing stuff from the shops on the way home. It's a revelation.
always found it flawed
my work has the 1k limit, and limits where it can be used? halfords?tredz? and can't be used on sale bikes i think?
and then because im not taxed to the nines, the actual benefit is minimal, although the ability to pay back over time might be useful
it shouldn't benefit higher earners more than lower earners, in fact it should be flipped on its head.
I've said it a million times, but a scheme where manufacturers/dealers could submit a model to be verified as a commuter/shopper specific model and if approved it is sold without attracting VAT. E or normal - any value. Sell to anyone who wants to buy it - employed, retired, unemployed. Still doesn't help with the loan/repayment aspect but accessible for all. You it to travel to work, go shopping, visit friends, get some light exercise - all the good stuff you can do with a bike that's intended as tool not a toy or bit of sports equipment.
Yes, the lycra brigade (and I include myself in this) who want to commute on something that's essentially a gravel/road bike miss out (and the cool kids who commute on BMXs) - but they don't need encouragement to switch to doing low distance travel on a bike. It would mean manufacturers would be encouraged to make and promote genuinely urban appropriate utility bikes and ebikes with guards and racks and a lights and proper comfort in normal clothes like a grown up civilised country.
But a scheme that had the loophole of using taxable income from high-rate taxpayers to significantly fund the £5K+ n+1 weekend toys of the well-heeled whilst the minimum wage worker couldn't access a loan to help buy their cheap bike to actually ride to work on is completely indefensible.
Will make the tiniest pimple of a difference in the grand scheme of things mind.
The main issue will be that these sorts of salary sacrifice schemes - not especially C2W - are used widely to reduce gross salaries to avoid some of the tax threshold changes, and to qualify for things like Child Benefit.
I'm not surprised at the idea being floated, but it must be very small beer compared to salary sacrifices for pensions, electric cars etc.
C2W scheme caps are common in any case. Ours (NHS) was only lifted from £1k to £2.5k in 2023. I commute about 2,500 miles per year on my bikes so I have found it useful to buy parts.
am not actually that bothered about how people commute but evidence should be required that they are actually commuting by bike. Where I work no evidence is required at all.
Interesting isn't it, I could provide evidence of my commutes - video footage.. who would check it?? But apart from my health (til I get splatted) and not having to buy petrol, my company gives me no other benefit for not clogging the local roads and car park with another car. A little tax break on some tyres from Tredz every year is the best I can hope for.
May well have been at £1,000 with people actually starting to ride a bike. People buying £6k bikes on it will most likely already be cycling so no health benefit at all. That's what happens when you move massively from the original criteria.
Seeing as you are a very vocal critic of the scheme - can you provide figures showing that this is the case?
Evidence that the original £1K limit has gone, really?
I am not actually that bothered about how people commute but evidence should be required that they are actually commuting by bike
Its get tricky for the valid cycle to the station and then catch the train. Although I guess with BTP new approach to dealing with thefts I guess the test could be requiring you to give the crime reference number and if you dont by the end of the year chances are you werent commuting.
For something that you’re going to use every day and for it to be reliable, you do need to spend a bit of money.
Yet near me there are several warehouses with people commuting each day on BSOs. A cheap bike can be pretty reliable at the expense of weight and general poor performance.
Overall I think as is shown by many of the defenders on this thread it is being used to buy nice shiny toys vs commuting. I would prefer to see the money spent on infrastructure and supporting the poorly paid employees who dont benefit from C2W and yet commute every day on bikes.
On the "evidence of use for commuting" thing, IDGAS. If someone buys a bike to use it in any way, there are sufficient positive health benefits regardless - and some non-cyclists getting the bug increases demand for infrastructure while also converting them from being cycle-haters.
As regards the cost cap, there really is no justification for anything over £2k. The original scheme was well intentioned, let's get it back to that. If some manufacturers are encouraged to improve what's available at that price point then it's also a win. Maybe we'll see more simple XC hardtails...
I've said it a million times, but a scheme where manufacturers/dealers could submit a model to be verified as a commuter/shopper specific model
This is just nonsensical ( if I may make so bold). What constitutes a commuter/shopper?
who want to commute on something that's essentially a gravel/road bike miss out
What's wrong with commuting on a gravel or road bike?
manufacturers would be encouraged to make and promote genuinely urban appropriate urban bikes and ebikes with guards and racks and a lights and proper comfort in normal clothes like a grown up civilised country.
Great. Again, what is this obsession with stipulating that people use a specific tool that can be totally ill suited to the job?
My commute is 18km, the vast majority of which is on fast flat country lanes. WTF would I want an urban bike for that? To keep me regularly cycling on that commute it needs to be fast, light and fun to ride. There has to be a something that draws me to it rather than the car. And some heavy, big tyres, PoS urban monster ain't going to do that.
Don't get me wrong, C2W is a ridiculous system that benefits completely the wrong set of people disproportionately, but specifying some narrow definition of what people can buy is not the fix
I would prefer to see the money spent on infrastructure and supporting the poorly paid employees who dont benefit from C2W and yet commute every day on bikes.
Exactly
Evidence that the original £1K limit has gone, really?
No. That the majority of users are significantly spending more than is necessary. There's been lots of talk of £6k luxury bikes so that should reflect in the average spend? The £1k limit is not fit for use on a 25 year old scheme - that should be patently obvious to anyone, but seeing as you are so vocal, I think it's reasonable that you should be able to tell us what the average spend is on C2W?
Someone asked above the potential tax revenue this will raise. Guardian (and I think FT but can't find link now) quotes "The cost of the scheme rose from £55m in 2019-20 to £130m in 2024-25."> https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/12/rachel-reeves-to-cut-tax-benefits-for-workers-using-salary-sacrifice-schemes-to-buy-bikes <[my reading is this is cost of NI/national income "lost"] Should be noted those bikes still attract VAT and help keep bike shops running. https://www.bikeradar.com/news/cycle-to-work-scheme-delivers-annual-benefits-of-573-million-to-uk-economy says >£500m benefit with £44m VAT alone.
Of course some of us would have bought nice bikes anyway so it's not as simple as saying all that VAT now won't be collected. However, I am not convinced this is entirely about raising revenue.
For the record, the most expensive bike I bought on cyclescheme was a Merida Reacto 2018 (£3k RRP reduced to £2k; and contrary to what some people wrote in the thread, there is no general saying you can't use them on sale bikes- that's down to the scheme providers, employers and retailers) and I did loads of commuting with it when the weather was nice (even if some of that was extending my commute to include Regents Park..) --> fitter, happier, healthier --> more productive and less burden on NHS. Oakies, fine if nobody wants to encourage that for me personally.. I'd be riding anyways.
Prior to that I used cyclescheme for a dedicated hydro disc/105/rack/mudguarded commuter (Pinnacle Arkose 4) in 2015 that racked up a lot of kms and got me off the tube at rush hour. Cost around £1.2k. First "expensive" bike I bought new. Still got it.
Yes, some people abused the scheme. I'd want to see more data to convince me there was widespread abuse though.
TBH, my scheme wasn't all that good in that not too many bike sellers I'd want to use accepted them. I'm more worried about the pension issue if they restrict that. I won't be using the car salary sacrifice as our scheme reduces the employer's pension contribution which can be substantial if the gross vehicle lease is £500 a month - just not worth doing at my time of life considering work pension is 23% on top of my contributions (8-10%).
As regards the cost cap, there really is no justification for anything over £2k.
Ebike + helmet + lights + serious lock.
There are commutes, and commuters, that can be moved away from the car default by including ebikes in the scheme. Set a limit that is designed to stop people buying decent ebikes and it seriously reduces its effectiveness at getting people out of cars and onto bikes.
I think it's reasonable that you should be able to tell us what the average spend is on C2W?
Value of bicycles accessed through the scheme % of Cycle to Work Scheme users
Under £200 8%
£201 to £400 16%
£401 to £600 21%
£601 to £800 9%
£801 to £1,000 21%
£1,001 to £1,200 5%
£1,201 to £1,400 2%
£1,401 to £1,600 6%
£1,601 to £1,800 1%
£1,801 to £2,000 3%
£2,001 and over 6%
Don’t know or can’t remember 1%
From here. Not immediately clear whether that is just from their sample or all users of the scheme.
This is just nonsensical ( if I may make so bold). What constitutes a commuter/shopper?
I don't think it takes much thinking about. I'd happily be the arbiter and write a specification for manufacturers.
I would have:-
- Brakes
- flat bar
- guards
- a method of carrying luggage (beyond strapping a bkepacking frame bag to it - i.e. a pannier rack, built in basket etc).
- Reflectors that are actually attached in at least a semi-permanent way rather than tossed in a bag at the bottom of the box.
As a minimum specification.
They'd might look like this
or this
or even maybe this
What's wrong with commuting on a gravel or road bike?
Nothing wrong with using a gravel bike or road bike -it's what I use - this scheme would just not be for you (or me).
Great. Again, what is this obsession with stipulating that people use a specific tool that can be totally ill suited to the job?
My commute is 18km, the vast majority of which is on fast flat country lanes. WTF would I want an urban bike for that? To keep me regularly cycling on that commute it needs to be fast, light and fun to ride. There has to be a something that draws me to it rather than the car. And some heavy, big tyres, PoS urban monster ain't going to do that.
Your commute would not be fit to lick the boots of mine - 45km each way of very rural roads. You and I would not benefit. Not even a little bit. And you know what - I couldn't give two shits. We are outliers - non normal. We don't need a tax break to get us doing what we do. We'd do it anyway. Hell, for years my employer didn't take part in the scheme....and in no way did that stop me riding in. The fact that a bike suitable for your (or my) needs was not eligible would be met with a tune on the world's smallest violin.
Stop thinking about what works for YOU and start think about what works for US. 'WE' need more people who don't ride bikes for short urban journeys to have a nudge to do it. 'WE' need that because of pollution and congestion in urban areas. 'WE' needed it because as a collective more and more of the NHS' limited budget is begin spent on illnesses brought on by inactivity - don't know about you but I'd rather less of the tax I pay was spend treating type II diabetes and knee replacements brought on by obesity.
C2W by its very definition is a scheme designed to reduce and divert the income tax that could be collected by HMRC. Taxes that could be spent on something else with a health benefit for the population as a whole. Quite simply, you thegeneralist and me, are just not my priority. We miss out - so ****ing what?
Yes, some people abused the scheme. I'd want to see more data to convince me there was widespread abuse though.
"Hands up if you abused the scheme"
STW forumites -
Quality rant. I'm not sure whether you're saying you're pissed off with labour in general, and so won't vote fir them again, or that you genuinely think it is wrong for them to remove your access to a deeply discounted high end eeb....
You know what, I actually typed out a massive reply covering my thoughts on the whole subject, why I feel mugged off by Labour, a full list of what they're actually spaffing tax money on in stupid places, their approach of money grabbing from all tax payers including the 40%, and why I feel I'll absolutely never vote for them ever again. But then I realised what's the point, it will just start an argument on a random cycling internet forum with people who I've never met, have no idea who they really are or their names or faces etc so it would be like arguing into the void and theres probably no point, and will go wildly off topic, so I've redacted it.
But in essence, it's not JUST about getting access to a deeply discounted ebike (deeply discounted could be debatable in terms of implied wording), it's more Labours economic handling, their intent of who foots the bills, and further frustration with tax raids on the middle earners when they're spaffing shit like 110m to ****stan which benefits no UK tax payer at all, or overpaying 9.5bn in benefits due to fraud and system error as a taster examples
Not immediately clear whether that is just from their sample or all users of the scheme.
I read that as being from their sample, which is users who have used the scheme at any time since the start, I think? So, if that's correct, not a true reflection on what's happened since the cap has gone. It's maybe worth remembering that there was always a way to remove the cap if your employer was happy to.
Quite right to cap, but needs to be open to those on the minimum wage.
That requires a much bigger change. When you get into the weeds of nmw legislation you have to pay the name after any salary sacrifice schemes an employee uses include pension contributions. That effectively means that at nmw all salary sacrifice schemes cost the employee nothing. I had to do a big piece of work in a previous job because employees salary sacrifice pensions took them below nmw.
Lets face it, as anyone who's spent any time working in a bike shop (outside of an urban area at least) will be able to verify - the majority of riders using the scheme are buying something for leisure use, I'd estimate 8/10, 9/10. You could legitimately argue though that encouraging the employee to adopt healthier lifestyles still has a net benefit for everyone, in fact the general population could probably do with many more financial incentives to take care of their health, not less.
Yeah, we should be handing those tax breaks to foreign companies to allow them to build cars here for three or four years before relocating to the Far East! Or servers for their AI. Or nuclear power plants. Let the bike industry, what's left of it, fail - there's always Halfords.
See the other thread on that particular topic, but (IMO) there isn't really a "UK Bike industry" anymore as such. There's shops that sell bikes mostly made in the far-east, and a handful of premium frame fabricators who's products cost a lot mainly because they are operating in the UK where labour, material, energy etc are expensive. C2W basically subsidises bicycle retail today, mostly at the higher discretionary price points.
If that's considered acceptable we might as well start letting people do salary sacrifice for other discretionary purchases; fancy a new Telly? or some Golf bats? and want to reduce your tax burden at the same time?
I've said it a million times, but a scheme where manufacturers/dealers could submit a model to be verified as a commuter/shopper specific model and if approved it is sold without attracting VAT.
I actually Quite like that idea, I'd still bolt on the salary sacrifice option to help those in lower income brackets buy those "approved C2W bikes" But yeah it makes sense and makes it harder for people who don't really need a C2W bike abusing the scheme to buy whatever niche toy they fancy...
Perhaps it needs to be re-worked so that it's no longer just 'cycle to work' but addresses and enables the wider green/sustainable travel and health/obesity issues we have in this country.
We need more cyclists! As an aside, I sometimes see a line of about a dozen young children in hi-vis vests cycling in a line between several adults, along our high street. It's really nice to know that in places kids are still doing whatever passes for the Cycling Proficiency Test these days. It'd be lovely if the scheme enabled lower income families to buy a quality bike for the youngsters when they pass.
Yes, some people abused the scheme. I'd want to see more data to convince me there was widespread abuse though.
Without evidence that bike is being used to commute on we will never know. Anecdotally I know quite a few people who used the scheme and only 1 of them rides a bike to work but they are a keen cyclist who also has other bikes...
Lets face it, as anyone who's spent any time working in a bike shop (outside of an urban area at least) will be able to verify - the majority of riders using the scheme are buying something for leisure use, I'd estimate 8/10, 9/10.
The majority of riders using the scheme get the bike, use it once or twice and then put it away, never to be ridden again. The challenge is to get them to take the first step - get a bike. Step two, ride it more often. Step three, commute on it. Let's not mention commuting through the winter yet.
Yea, the scheme is broken.
The tax saving on some of those bikes people on this thread have been talking about getting will be more than the total amount you can claim on JSA (£2393.30).
Give your heads a wobble.