The Supreme Court ruling means that Councils and Tribunals can ignore Bedroom Tax on Human Rights grounds.
News | 18.11.19
The Supreme Court has ruled against the UK Government’s attempts to force the bedroom tax on 155 partners of people with severe disabilities. The unanimous judgment ruled that applying a 14% housing benefit reduction to a man, referred to as RR in court, was a breach of his right to home under the Human Rights Act.
Lady Hale, the Supreme Court's President, said:
“The Human Rights Act is an act of the United Kingdom parliament and takes precedence over subordinate legislation such as the regulation in question… This means that incompatible subordinate legislation must simply be ignored.”
Read more about the full implications of the ruling at Rights Info:
https://rightsinfo.org/councils-bedroom-tax-rights-breach/
The Guardian has published the following article on the ruling:
Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform said:
“This is very welcome news. The Bedroom Tax is an abomination. Instead of building more homes and making homes more accessible the Government choose to tax the poorest, people who are forced to rent and in particular disabled people. There was never any justification for this policy and the fact that human rights legislation has acted as some kind of constraint on this injustice shows that we must defend and enhance the role of human rights in our welfare system.”
