Bland v Chief Supplementary Benefit Officer
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE KERR,SIR SEBAG SHAW |
| Judgment Date | 01 December 1982 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1982] EWCA Civ J1201-1 |
| Docket Number | 82/0464 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 01 December 1982 |
[1982] EWCA Civ J1201-1
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM A SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER
Royal Courts of Justice.
The Master of The Rolls
(Sir John Donaldson)
Lord Justice Kerr
and
Sir Sebag Shaw
82/0464
MR. M. ROWLAND (instructed by Roger Smith, Esq., Child Poverty Action Group) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. SIMON BROWN (instructed by The Solicitor to the Department of Health and Social Security) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
On this occasion the court is concerned with an application by Mr. Simon Peter Bland. The application raises an interesting and important point. It is this: has the Court of Appeal any jurisdiction to give leave to appeal from the refusal of a Social Security commissioner to give leave to appeal to her from a decision of the Supplementary Benefit Tribunal?
The dispute itself arose in June 1981. In the previous month Mr. Bland, who was physically disabled and in receipt of a supplementary allowance, claimed a single payment under the Supplementary Benefit (Single Payments) Regulations, the basis of the claim being that he was entitled to money with which to buy a bed, a mattress and blankets and possibly also sheets. He was given £23.33 for sheets and two blankets, but was refused any payment in respect of the bed and a mattress.
He was aggrieved with that decision, and appealed on the 22nd June, 1981 to the Coventry Benefit Appeal Tribunal. Two months later that tribunal rejected his appeal. He was again aggrieved, and he applied to the Social Security commissioner for leave to appeal to her. The basis of his application for leave to appeal was a submission that the Supplementary Benefit Appeal Tribunal had misconstrued the relevant regulations and, further or alternatively, had failed to give sufficient reasons and had failed to make sufficient findings to enable him and his advisers to know whether or not it had misconstrued the regulations. For my part—although it is not material to this appeal—I think that there is a great deal to be said for that submission. Unfortunately Mrs. Heggs, the commissioner, took a different view, and refused leave to appeal to her.
At that stage the Child Poverty Action Group entered upon the scene, and made a request on behalf of Mr. Bland to Mrs. Heggs for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal from her refusal of leave to appeal to her. Mrs. Heggs considered that application, and rejected it on the ground that she had no jurisdiction to grant leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal from a decision by her that there should be no leave to appeal to her. I stress in each case the words "to her" not to emphasise the fact that she is a lady commissioner rather than a male commissioner, but to point the difference between the case where the commissioner is concerned with leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal and where the commissioner is concerned with leave to appeal to the commissioner from the Supplementary Benefit Appeal Tribunal.
At that stage an application was made to this court for leave to appeal from Mrs. Heggs' refusal. The matter came before Lord Justice Slade, who referred the application to the full court, and ordered that it was to follow the hearing of an appeal by a Mr. Morrell and that, if leave was granted, the appeal should be heard immediately after the grant of leave. He also gave liberty to apply to vary his order.
The Chief Supplementary Benefit Officer, who was the respondent in these proceedings, now applies to this court pursuant to the leave granted by Lord Justice Slade asking us to vary the order by determining here and now whether there is jurisdiction to grant leave to appeal to this court—because, if there is jurisdiction, there is no doubt that leave would be granted—and also to vary the order that this matter shall await the hearing of Mr. Morrell's appeal. There is no problem about that.
Accordingly what we have to consider is the question of jurisdiction. It is tacitly admitted that the decision of the Supplementary Benefit Tribunal is not really satisfactory. It is further said by Mr. Simon Broun on behalf of the respondent that once the question of jurisdiction can be got out of the way, then what is from Mr. Bland's point of view the important question, namely his entitlement to a grant for a bed and mattress can possibly be dealt with to his satisfaction without resort to courts of law. I have certainly been a little struck, listening to the appeal, by the fact that important though this question of jurisdiction undoubtedly is, it is far removed from what these proceedings are really about, namely Mr. Bland's bed and mattress. However that may be, it is an interesting and important point that we now have to decide, and I would only say that I sincerely hope that Mr. Bland's application will be resolved to his satisfaction and that of the Chief Supplementary Benefit Officer in the near future.
what Mr. Brown submits is this. He says that there is no jurisdiction in the Court of Appeal to grant leave to appeal in these circumstances, but that is not to say that Mr. Bland is without a remedy. Mr. Bland should have applied to the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division claiming a judicial review of the decision of the Supplementary Benefit Appeal Tribunal with which he was aggrieved. From the way in which the submission was made, I infer that had Mr. Bland done that there would not have been any very spirited opposition on the part of the Chief Supplementary Benefit Officer on the facts of this case. Nevertheless Mr. Broun paints out that the review jurisdiction of the Divisional Court is different in kind—in some respects more limited and in other respects less limited—than is the appellate jurisdiction of the High Court. That is right, and it is quite inappropriate in my judgment that this court should seek to define what are the limits of the review jurisdiction of the Divisional Court. That will be developed case by case, and the principles are already well-established.
So I return to the question whether there is a right of appeal to this court. This court is the creature of statute, and it is necessary to point to some statutory right of appeal before it can have jurisdiction. On the facts of this case Mr. Rowland, who has appeared for Mr. Bland, points to section 14 of the Social Security Act 1980. That is in these terms. Section 14 (1) reads:
"Subject to subsections (2) and (3) of this section, an appeal on a question of law shall lie to the appropriate court from any decision of a Commissioner."
"A Commissioner" is of course a Social Security Commissioner. "The appropriate court" is the Court of Appeal, as is clear from subsection...
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