Universal Credit in UK Law

In any event, the material before court does not establish that the Transitional Regulations as they stand strike a fair balance between the interests of the individual and the interests of the community in bringing about a phased transition to universal credit. In all the circumstances of this case, the operation of the implementation arrangements in the way they do is manifestly without reasonable foundation and fails to strike a fair balance.

We need to consider what are the disadvantages of deciding not to “fine-tune” the Regulations thereby allowing the non-banking day salary shift problem to persist unresolved; what are the disadvantages of adopting a solution to the non-banking day salary shift problem; would a solution be consistent or inconsistent with the nature of the universal credit regime; and has a reasonable balance been struck by the SSWP — or rather is it possible to say that no reasonable Secretary of State would have struck the balance in the way the SSWP has done in this case?

The effect of these swings in universal credit award and monthly income is described in detail in the witness statements of the Respondents. Ms Johnson states that she finds it impossible to budget for sudden drops in income in the months following an assessment period in which two salary instalments have been counted. She becomes overdrawn at the bank during the month in which the low universal credit award is received.

The duration of the impact on the Respondents: At present there is no way for the Respondents themselves to put matters right once the start and end dates of their assessment periods are fixed by the date on which they submit their claim. As the table in para 60 above shows, the problem arises in several months each year and will last throughout the years of the claimant's period of entitlement.

For by then there was — and there still remains — clear authority both in the Humphreys case and in the bedroom tax case for the proposition that, at any rate in relation to the government's need to justify what would otherwise be a discriminatory effect of a rule governing entitlement to welfare benefits, the sole question is whether it is manifestly without reasonable foundation.

Under the new system, a single tax credit is payable in respect of each child, irrespective of whether the claimant is in or out of work, and is administered by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). CTC is like income support and jobseeker's allowance, in that it is a benefit rather than a disregard and it is means-tested, so that the higher one's income the less the benefit, until eventually it tapers out altogether.

It seems clear from Stec, however, that the normally strict test for justification of sex discrimination in the enjoyment of the Convention rights gives way to the "manifestly without reasonable foundation" test in the context of state benefits. The same principles were applied to the sex discrimination involved in denying widow's pensions to men in Runkee v United Kingdom [2007] 2 FCR 178, para 36.