GW v Dumfries and Galloway Council and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: [2025] UKUT 354 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber decision by Judge Wright on 16 October 2025.
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Judicial Summary
This case is about whether the changes to the regulations 2(1) and 13D(3)(za) of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, in respect of “members of a couple who cannot share a bedroom”, brought in after the Supreme Court’s decision in R(Carmichael) v SSWP [2016] UKSC 58, discriminated against a claimant who could not meet the statutory test on human rights grounds.
The key part of the definition of “member of a couple who cannot share a bedroom” that the claimant did not meet was the need to be in receipt of a specified disability benefit (in has case the highest or middle rate of the care component of Disability Living Allowance), as he had been refused an award of that part of DLA and had not sought to reclaim it.
The First Tier Tribunal dismissed the claimant’s appeal. His further appeal to the Upper Tribunal was also dismissed for two reasons. First, because there was no difference in treatment based on the personal characteristic of disability. The difference between the appellant and someone with similar disabilities to him, but who was receiving the relevant care component of DLA, was not based on the appellant’s and the comparator’s disabilities but was because of the appellant’s choice not reclaim the care component of DLA. Claiming or not claiming DLA was not a form of “other status” under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights as that would be to define the status solely by reference to the difference in treatment complained of. As such, justification did not arise. Second, if justification was in issue, the requirement to be in receipt of a specified disability benefit found in regulation 2(1)(a) of the HB Regs had objective and reasonable justification given what Carmichael had held was needed.