Legal action
Challenging a Council's housing list policy
Published: 4 April 2019
Last updated: 16 April 2019
What countries does this apply to?
Case details
| Protected Characteristic | Race |
|---|---|
| Types of equality claim | Indirect discrimination |
| Court or tribunal | Court of Appeal (Civil), High Court (Admin Court) |
| Decision has to be followed in | England, Wales |
| Law applies in | England, Scotland, Wales |
| Case state | Concluded |
| Our involvement | Intervention (section 30 of the Equality Act 2006) |
| Outcome | Judgment |
| Areas of life | Living standards |
| International framework | International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) |
Case name: R (TW) and R (Gullu) v London Borough of Hillingdon
Hillingdon Council’s housing rules said that a person must have lived in the area for at least ten years before they could apply for a house. The council refused two people, a refugee who had been given permission to stay in the UK and an Irish Traveller, on these grounds. We saw this as discriminatory and we intervened in their cases in the Administrative Court and the Court of Appeal.
Legal issue
Is a council's housing list policy that requires ten years' residency discriminatory on the basis of race?
Background
There were two claimant in this case; a male refugee who had been granted leave to remain after living in the UK for three years and an Irish Traveller who had to stop travelling after becoming unwell. Neither could go on the housing waiting list because Hillingdon Council’s rules said that a person must have lived in the area for ten years before applying.
Why we were involved
We were concerned that the council’s housing rules indirectly discriminated against refugees and other groups who couldn’t possibly meet them.
What we did
Our aim in intervening was to make sure Hillingdon Council changed its rules and that in the future decisions about who is eligible for social housing are not made in a discriminatory way.
We made clear to the court the importance of preventing discrimination when it comes to allocating social housing.
What happened
The case was successful; the Court of Appeal said that the policy discriminated against Irish Travellers and non-UK nationals.
Who will benefit
There are around 125,000 refugees in the UK and 63,000 people who identify as Travellers. We hope that the outcome of this case will protect these two groups from discrimination when it comes to social housing rules
Date of hearing
Date concluded
Page updates
Published:
4 April 2019
Last updated:
16 April 2019
