Paralympic gold medallist calls for removal of VAT on tandem bicycles for blind
A Paralympic gold medallist is calling for the Treasury to remove VAT from tandem bicycles to help blind and visually impaired people get into cycling.
Lizzi Jordan, who won a gold medal in the time trial at the Paris games in 2024, said removing the tax could allow more people with visual disabilities get out and about on two wheels, which could mean huge benefits to their health and wellbeing.
Currently, tandem bikes are subject to the 20% tax. However, bicycles that are adapted for other disabilities, such as hand cycles for amputees, are VAT-exempt. Ms Jordan believes two-person bicycles should be brought into line for people with visually impaired people.
The 28-year-old, who is a six-time world champion and was made an MBE in 2025 for services to cycling, compared the situation to a “disability lottery”.
The Treasury said it already offers some support to blind people, but added it would not comment on speculation.
Ms Jordan, from Guildford in Surrey, has written to John Healey ahead of the Budget on October 28.
She told the Press Association: “It does frustrate me because it’s not just hard having a disability, but it’s even harder to see some disabilities have been awarded with incentives and tax reliefs, and others haven’t.
“It shouldn’t depend what disability you have as to whether you get the VAT exemption, because disabled people already earn so much less, and already are discriminated against in so many ways in society.
“So I can’t understand how we’re going even further into that discrimination and now discriminating against what disability you have as to whether you can access a bike.”
She added: “I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here. This exists already. Tandems just need to be included in it."
“It’s not like I’m trying to ask the Government to do something totally unique and extreme. This system already exists. It just discriminates against visually impaired people.”
Ms Jordan lost her sight after contracting E-coli as a student, aged 19 in 2017. She spent eight weeks in a coma in multi-organ failure, and was in hospital for 12 weeks. She had to learn to walk again, but just over a year later ran the London Marathon, raising £15,000 for the Royal National Institute for Blind People.
She then attended a talent identification day for British Cycling in 2020 and began training as an athlete.
“I thought I want to achieve more without my sight than I ever even would with it,” she said.
However, she believes the VAT costs on bikes could put off both the next generation of para-athletes, and people cycling for their own enjoyment.
Ms Jordan competes on a tandem with a “pilot” who directs the bicycle as she pedals. She won her 2024 Paris medal alongside Danni Khan.
The adapted bicycles receive a tax exemption as they are designed and produced solely for disabled people. However, the tandems blind people can use are the same as for able-bodied people, so have not got the same relief. They can cost between £1,000 and £2,500.
According to its research, British Cycling believes it would cost the Treasury £27,000 for the VAT cut.
Ms Jordan said she believes people who have got the NHS’s CV1 certification of blindness should be able to qualify for the discount.
She said she feels a “moral duty” to campaign on the issue: “When I started cycling, my parents funded me a tandem, which again I was fortunate they were in the financial position to do so."
“But tandems are more expensive than your standard bike that your normal cyclists could pick up from Evans, and they are inflated because they’re a different kind of bike."
“There’s not that many of them produced, and obviously specialist equipment.”
She added: “Not everyone wants to become an elite tandem cyclist when they get into cycling, but everyone should have the right to cycling and to enjoy all the other benefits it can give you.”
A Treasury spokesperson said blind people already qualify for a £3,250 higher rate of personal allowance.
They said: “We want to ensure the tax system is fair for blind and visually impaired people, which is why support is already available through measures such as the Blind Person’s Allowance and a range of VAT reliefs."
“As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the Chancellor to set out at fiscal events, and we do not comment on speculation or proposals ahead of the Budget.”