[2025] UKUT 048 (AAC)

The Upper Tribunal’s jurisdiction under section 11 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 (TCEA 2007) is limited to considering whether there are any points of law arising from a decision made by the First-tier Tribunal.

Errors of law include misunderstanding or misapplying the law, taking into account irrelevant factors or failing to take into account relevant factors. An error of fact is not an error of law unless the First-tier Tribunal’s conclusion on the facts is perverse. That is a high threshold: it means that the conclusion must be irrational or wholly unsupported by the evidence. An appeal to the Upper Tribunal is not an opportunity to re-argue the case on its merits. These principles are set out in many cases, including R (Iran) v SSHD [2005] EWCA Civ 982 at [9]-[13].

A failure to give adequate reasons for a decision is itself an error of law. A Tribunal does not need to set out every step in their reasoning or even to deal with every point raised by the parties, but reasons will not be adequate if they do not deal with the substantial points in the case or are insufficient to enable the parties to understand why they have won or lost and any appellate tribunal to see there has been no error of law: see, eg. R(Jones) v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2013] UKSC 19, [2013] 2 AC 48 per Lord Hope at [25] and R (Iran) v SSHD [2005] EWCA Civ 982 at [13]-[16] per Brooke LJ).

In scrutinising the judgment of a First-tier Tribunal, the Upper Tribunal is required to read the judgment fairly and as a whole, remembering that the First-tier Tribunal is not required to express every step of its reasoning or to refer to all the evidence, but only to set out sufficient reasons to enable the parties to see why they have lost or won and that no error of law has been made: cf DPP Law Ltd v Greenberg [2021] EWCA Civ 672 at [57]. That case also makes the point (at [58]) that where the First-tier Tribunal has correctly stated the law, the Upper Tribunal should be slow to conclude that it has misapplied it.

So far as expert evidence is concerned, provided the First-tier Tribunal properly directs itself in law as to the applicable legal principles, and gives adequate reasons for its decision, it is in general entitled to prefer the opinion of one expert over the other (see Hampshire County Council v JP [2009] UKUT 239 (AAC) at [37]-[39]) or even to reject expert evidence and reach its own view using its own expertise (see D v SENDIST [2005] EWHC 2722, [2006] ELR 370).