This case concerned entitlement to widowed parent’s allowance (WPA) where the appellant and her partner had undergone a religious ceremony, several years before his death, and considered themselves to be, and held themselves out as being, legally married even though they weren't in fact married under English law.
The First tier Tribunal found that the appellant had no entitlement to WPA because she did not meet the marriage requirement, and CPAG supported the appellant in appealing to the Upper Tribunal. Judgment was handed down on 26/05/20, dismissing the appeal. The Tribunal held that the grain of the legislation was that the benefit was only to be paid to a spouse or civil partner and to interpret it otherwise would be to cross the divide from the Tribunal's interpretive function and into policy matters that should be reserved for Parliament.
For the judgment and advice for unmarried WPA claimants, read full article.
Refugees with pre-flight children claiming Maternity Grant for first child in UK
Upper Tribunal decides refugees who arrived in the UK with children, can claim a Sure Start Maternity Grant when having their first child in the UK (as the contrary position results in unlawful discrimination).
In August 2018, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment that denying bereavement benefits to unmarried, cohabiting partners with children is incompatible with human rights law. Separately, CPAG is representing a Muslim woman with two young children who was also denied WPA following the sudden death of her partner with whom she had been through an Islamic marriage ceremony and believed herself to be lawfully married.
This case concerns the removal of the spare room subsidy, widely referred to as the ‘bedroom tax’, in cases where a bedroom is too small for two children to share.
This appeal concerns the application of the ‘past presence’ test that requires disability benefit claimants to be resident in Great Britain for 104 weeks out of the 156 weeks prior to the claim. However, for claimants to whom an EU regulation applies, the past presence test is disapplied if they can establish a genuine and sufficient link to the UK social security system.
The issue raised by this case in the Court of Appeal is whether the UK’s Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2006 must be read pursuant to EU law as providing a right to reside in the UK not only to EEA children in education whose parents have been employed persons, but also to those whose parents have been self-employed persons. Regretfully the Court of Appeal has decided that there is no such requirement and an application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court has been refused.
