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Neutral Citation Number:
Reported Number:	R(H)7/06
File Number:	CH 3801 2004
Appellant:	Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v Wilson [2006] EWCA Civ 882
Respondent:
Judge/Commissioner:	Judge H. Levenson
Date Of Decision:	29/06/2006
Date Added:	23/06/2005
Main Category:	Claims and payments
Main Subcategory:	required information
Secondary Category:	Housing and council tax benefits
Secondary Subcategory:	other
Notes:	Claims for housing benefit and council tax benefit – required information – claimant’s partner not allowed recourse to public funds – whether partner subject to national insurance number requirement as “any other person in respect of whom he is claiming benefit” The claimant was in receipt of income support and housing and council tax benefit. He married a woman of Thai nationality whose leave to remain in the United Kingdom was subject to a condition that she neither worked nor had recourse to public funds. She had been wrongly advised not to apply for a national insurance number. The claimant himself had a national insurance number and was a British national. The claimant notified the fact of his marriage to the local authority, and in due course the authority issued a form to the Department for Work and Pensions for allocation of a national insurance number to the claimant’s wife. She indicated that she did not at that stage wish to have a national insurance number. The authority then terminated the award of housing and council tax benefit on the ground that the claimant’s wife did not meet the condition of section 1(1B) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, which requires that a national insurance number be allocated or that an application be made for a national insurance number, accompanied by sufficient information for one to be issued. Section (1)1A applies that requirement to both the claimant and “any other person in respect of whom [the claimant] is claiming benefit”, but that term is not defined. The claimant appealed and an appeal tribunal allowed his appeal on the ground that the claimant was not making a claim on his wife’s behalf, and that her national insurance number was irrelevant. The authority appealed to the Commissioner and the Secretary of State was joined as a party. The Commissioner dismissed the appeal, holding that where a claimant’s partner is not allowed by law to have recourse to public funds, she is not “a person in respect of whom he is claiming benefit” for the purposes of section 1(1A) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 in relation to a claim for housing benefit and that the requirement of section 1(1B) does not have to be satisfied in relation to her. The Secretary of State appealed to the Court of Appeal. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. as a matter of ordinary language, benefit is claimed “in respect of” a person if the benefit claimed is referable in some way to that person, and it is so referable on a claim to housing benefit by a member of a couple, since the partner is taken into account in the quantification of the benefit to the extent that the outcome is the same whichever member of the couple makes the claims (paragraphs 28 to 32); 2. the above applied equally where a claimant was on income support and there was no separate housing benefit calculation, because the calculation for income support would take account of the claimant’s partner in the same way (paragraphs 33 and 34); 3. even though the claimant’s partner was taken into account in the calculation of benefit, her status as a person from abroad meant that this did not lead to any increase in the amount of benefit actually paid and so there was no recourse to public funds (paragraph 40); 4. it followed that the national insurance number requirement had to be satisfied in respect of the claimant’ partner as well as himself (paragraph 42); 5. the fact that the claimant’s wife may have provided enough information to enable a national insurance number to be allocated to her could not bring her within section 1(1B) of the 1992 Act since there was no application for a national insurance number to be allocated (paragraphs 42 to 44).
Decision(s) to Download:	R(H) 7-06bv.doc