Benefit claimants who were hoping to receive £1,500 in backpay will have been disappointed after a judge's ruling today.
Legacy claimants brought a court case against the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) over an "unfair" bonus given to Universal Credit claimants during the pandemic.
But today, The High Court ruled that they would not be getting the additional payments or any backpay, reported Birmingham Live.
READ MORE: Benefit claimants could get £1,560 backpay after DWP court case
The judge acknowledged that there was discrimination but said the difference in treatment was justified as the raise was intended to help those who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic and were forced to claim UC for the first time.
William Ford, partner at Osbornes Law, who represents all four of the individuals who brought the brought the judicial review challenging the failure to extended the £20 uplift to those on legacy benefits, said: "We are extremely disappointed by today’s judgment and will study it carefully to assess whether there are any grounds to appeal.
"The court’s decision is a devastating blow to more than two million people who we consider were unjustly deprived of the £20 uplift given to those who receive Universal Credit during the pandemic.
"It is deeply unfair that those on so-called legacy benefits should be discriminated against in this way and we will look to see if we can continue to fight the Government on this issue to get our clients and everybody else on legacy benefits justice."
Between March 30, 2020 and October 5, 2021, the standard allowance element of Universal Credit was increased by £86 a month, equivalent to approximately £20 per week. That amounted to an extra £1,560 over that period.
There was no corresponding increase for those on legacy benefits, including Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA) and Income Support (IS).
Four claimants brought a challenge in the High Court in relation to the Government’s failure to apply a similar increase to legacy benefits. Two of the claimants were in receipt of ESA and the Third and Fourth Claimants were in receipt of IS and JSA.
Permission for the case to proceed was granted by the High Court in April 2021, and a final hearing was heard in November 2021.
The claimants argued that this ongoing difference in treatment between those in receipt of UC and those in receipt of legacy benefits was discriminatory, contrary to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court accepted that there were a greater proportion of disabled persons in receipt of legacy benefits, compared to disabled people on UC, and that both groups of disabled claimants were in the same position.
But while the court accepted that there was discrimination towards disabled people on legacy benefits, the judge ruled that the difference in treatment was justified.
Mr Justice Swift, giving judgment in this case, accepted the justification put forward by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that the increase to the standard allowance of UC was done with the intention of providing additional support to those people who lost their jobs as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and were forced to claim UC for the first time.
Mr Justice Swift accepted that using the increase in UC to cushion the loss of employment or reduction in income was a legitimate objective.
At the hearing, the court had been presented with evidence that, those new to benefits tended to have higher rates of savings and were better able to meet the costs of the pandemic as a result.
The judgment did acknowledge the very low level of income provided by legacy benefits and the hardship those in receipt of these benefits must have faced during the pandemic. However, Mr Justice Swift did not consider that this was legally relevant to the justification advanced by the DWP.
The claimants' legal team is currently giving consideration to whether there are merits to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Around 2.4 million people had been awaiting the results of the court case in the hope they would get backpay of £1,560 from the Government.
Disabled people and campaigners gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice last November in support of the case.
Members of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) - a network of over 100 organisations including Z2K, the MS Society, MND Association, and Leonard Cheshire - held a rally to demand justice for those who were denied extra support.
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