Appeals were taken to the Court of Appeal by A and also by SR, PR and W challenging the decisions to apply the bedroom tax in their cases with regard to extra bedrooms they had. A had suffered from very extreme domestic violence and was in what was known as a Sanctuary Scheme and had a safe room in her house. SR and PR were the grandparents of W who is a severely disabled child. They had an extra bedroom for carers who stayed overnight. The case centred on the fact that these two types of case did not come under the exceptions contained in Regulation B13 of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 and, thus, the appellants had part of their housing benefit removed because of the extra room.
Both appeals were successful before the Court of Appeal on the basis of unlawful discrimination under Article 14 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The appeals concerning alleged breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty were not successful. Both matters are now to proceed on appeal to the Supreme Court to be joined with another case involving the bedroom tax and to be heard in May 2016.
R (SR, PR and W) – v – Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, R (A) – v – Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Equality and Human Rights Commission [2016] EWCA Civ 29, 27 January 2016.
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