Legal test cases

This is a challenge to the policy of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in relation to MJ, a claimant in receipt of the carer element and transitional SDP element, to erode the whole of her transitional SDP element when she was found to have limited capability for work and work related activity. The UT allowed the SSWP’s appeal and re-made the FTT decision in MJ’s favour, finding that she had been unlawfully discriminated against.

The Upper Tribunal in this case gives guidance on how HMRC should calculate the earnings in a period of a term time worker and advises that this should not be done by looking at the wages they receive in a period but rather by looking at the wages they expect to receive for work done in a period. This should mean more term time workers on low incomes who are paid a monthly salary should now qualify for 30 hours free childcare.

CPAG represented the appellant in a challenge to the universal credit (UC) rules that prevent certain 19 year olds who are in full-time, non-advanced education from being included in their parents’ UC claim, while they are also prevented from claiming UC in their own right, on the basis that the provisions are discriminatory and irrational. The appeal was heard by the First-tier Tribunal on 24 November and was dismissed.