Contributory Benefit in UK Law

Despite Mr Cox's submissions, we consider that in answering this question a very considerable margin of discretion must be accorded to the Secretary of State. Difficult questions of economic and social policy were involved, the resolution of which fell within the province of the executive and the legislature rather than the courts. In this context we revert to the fact that the issue was the point in time at which benefits which had long been enjoyed by widows should be withdrawn.

Another test (which is a more developed variant of the one year before test and which I will call "the 50% test") was thus explained by the Commissioner in Decision R (U) 14/59, when he said that where "during the year ending with the day in question (or such other period as may provide a more suitable test in a particular case) a claimant has worked on less than 50 per cent of the days of the week in question (excluding any day of incapacity for work or holiday and days On which he was unemployed because his employment had been terminated) that day should be held to be one on which in the normal course the claimant would not work.

In the present case, in the absence of any finding by her that the appellant on 1st March 1983 had adopted his new part-time occupation with the intention of making it thenceforth his normal occupation, the learned Commissioner should, in my opinion, have directed her mind to the question whether or not the reasonable inference from all the evidence was that the employment on 1st March 1983 was in truth of a stop-gap nature: (see and compare paragraphs 4 and 5 of Decision R (U) 30/53).

We are no more able to accept this reasoning than we were the similar reasoning in Hooper. It seems to us that section 6(2)(b) addresses the grant by Parliament of a statutory power which, regardless of the circumstances in which it is exercised, will inevitably be incompatible with Convention rights. In such circumstances the power cannot be given effect to in a way which is compatible with the Convention, and thus s.6(2)(b) enables the exercise of the power without breach of section 6(1).

We appreciate the argument that if a failure to exercise a statutory power will inevitably involve a breach of Convention rights, Section 6(2)(b) is engaged, because implicit in the statutory power is the right to refrain from exercising the power. We make no comment as to whether that argument is sound or unsound. We simply observe that it has no application to the facts of this case. In most circumstances exercising that power will involve no incompatibility with the Convention.

Such states of mind can, however, only be regarded as impediments making it not reasonably practicable to present a complaint within the period of three months, if the ignorance on the oneband, or the mistaken belief on the other, is itself reasonable Either state of mind will, further, not be reasonable if it arises from the fault of the complainant in not making such enquiries as he should reasonably in all the circumstances have made, or from the fault of his solicitors or other professional advisers in not giving him such information as they should reasonably in all the circumstances have given him.

The allowance exists because of the responsibilities of the deceased and the survivor towards their children. Those responsibilities are the same whether or not they are married to or in a civil partnership with one another. The purpose of the allowance is to diminish the financial loss caused to families with children by the death of a parent. That loss is the same whether or not the parents are married to or in a civil partnership with one another.