[2025] UKUT 202 (AAC)

[49] We prefer to avoid talking in terms of respect, or in terms of the starting point for the tribunal’s consideration beyond saying that an appellant must demonstrate a mistake of law or fact. We put it like this. The DBS’s reasoning will be before the Upper Tribunal and the tribunal will take account of it for what it is worth in the context of the evidence as a whole. At one extreme, it may be of little assistance. If the tribunal has received significant further evidence (such as oral evidence that would not have been available to the DBS), it is likely that its evaluation of the evidence that was before it will have been overtaken so that the only appropriate approach will be for the Upper Tribunal to begin afresh. At the opposite extreme, it may play a significant role.