MA & Ors, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE RYDER
Areas of Law
- Human Rights Law
- Administrative Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The claimants challenged reductions in housing benefit (HB) for public sector tenants with more bedrooms than prescribed, arguing it discriminated against disabled persons. The Divisional Court initially rejected these challenges. The Court of Appeal agreed, ruling the measures did not unlawfully discriminate against disabled individuals when considering the availability of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). Additionally, it held the Secretary of State had given due regard to equality impacts under the Public Sector Equality Duty.
Judgment
Master of the Rolls:
Housing benefit (“HB”) is a means-tested benefit available to assist tenants to pay their rent. The claimants in these proceedings complain about the basis on which HB is calculated in relation to rents in the public sector. The measures of which complaint is made are contained in the Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (“the 2012 Regulations”) as further amended by the Housing Benefit and Universal Credit (Size Criteria) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013 (“the 2013 Regulations”) which amended the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (“the 2006 Regulations”). The 2012 Regulations reduced the eligible rent for the purpose of calculating HB where the number of bedrooms in a property let exceeds the number to which a claimant is entitled by reference to the standard criteria set out in Regulation B13 (“the bedroom criteria”). The reduction in eligible rent is 14% where there is one excess bedroom and 25% where there are two or more.
The 2012 Regulations were intended to address the problem that some tenants of social housing were occupying more space than they needed, by limiting the HB entitlement of those “under-occupying” accommodation to an “appropriate maximum housing benefit”. “Under-occupation” is defined by reference to the bedroom criteria. The adoption of these criteria to determine the appropriate maximum housing benefit has been a matter of great public controversy.
Under the existing regime (which will change when Universal Credit is introduced), eligibility for HB is assessed by reference to broad criteria for the assessment of deemed need at the local level by local authority decision-makers. Regulation B13 applies the bedroom criteria to public sector tenants so as to determine the number of bedrooms the claimant’s household is deemed to need for the purpose of determining the appropriate maximum HB. Having applied the bedroom criteria, the decision-maker then applies specific additional criteria to certain categories of persons (“the additional categories”). Once an applicant’s deemed need has been assessed, the overall scheme then provides for an inquiry into any further case-specific actual need, which is carried out by the local authority decision-maker on receipt of an application for additional assistance. This is done by a consideration of individual circumstances in order to determine whether to make additional contributions by way of Discretionary Housing Payments (“DHPs”). This is the