CA-2024-002185 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1049

This appeal arises out of an application by the appellant, Anisa Begum, for assistance with housing when she became homeless. The respondent, the local housing authority, accepted that it owed a duty under section 193 of the Housing Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”) to secure that suitable accommodation was available for the appellant. There was, however, a period of time when the appellant was provided with unsuitable accommodation. That issue has been resolved and, at least since August 2023, the appellant has been provided with accommodation for her and her children which it is accepted is suitable.

This appeal concerns a different aspect of the claim. The appellant claimed that she had been subject to indirect discrimination, contrary to section 19 of the Equality Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”). The claim, as amended, is that from October 2022 until at least 25 August 2023, the respondent applied a provision, criterion or practice, commonly referred to as a PCP, in “its system of allocating temporary accommodation to homeless applicants, which includes a ‘transfer list’ through which homeless applicants were provided accommodation which the [respondent] admitted was … unsuitable”. It was said that the application of that PCP put women, or women with children, at a particular disadvantage as compared with men, or men with children, which the respondent could not show was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. By an amendment to the claim form made on 1 December 2023, the appellant claimed that the respondent’s conduct constituted a breach of the duty under section 149 of the 2010 Act to have due regard to specified equality considerations.

David Pittaway KC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court (“the judge”), dismissed those claims. He found that the inclusion of information on a database did not amount to a PCP, did not put women as compared to men at a particular disadvantage and, if he were wrong on those matters, the PCP had been shown by the respondent to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. He found no breach of the duty imposed by section 149 of the 2010 Act.

The appellant advances six grounds of appeal (and confirmed at the start of the hearing of the appeal that she was withdrawing a seventh ground of appeal). The six grounds are that the judge:

Shelter was given permission to intervene by written and oral submissions and did so in relation to grounds 3, 5 and 6. It did not seek to intervene in relation to grounds 1, 2 and 4.