[2025] UKUT 259 (AAC)

The Appellant relies on status as a disabled person in establishing indirect discrimination. It is recognised however, that with status reduced to “vanishing point” (Stevenson v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] EWCA Civ 2123 at [41]) other, narrower statuses are plausible. Those narrower statuses, such as comparing with those who require treatment whilst in Great Britain (wherever that treatment actually occurs) with those who require treatment once physically outside Great Britain (even if treated as in Great Britain) are likely to be justified as not manifestly without reasonable foundation.

Person A, a person in full health, and Person B, a disabled person, are both subject to the same default one-month absence abroad rule in the absence of a relevant bereavement on an absence not intended to be for the purpose of medical treatment, assuming he is not an offshore worker or mariner. Though A and B are both subject to the default one month absence rule, B is at greater risk of losing entitlement of benefit for reasons connected with his status.

Issue is taken with the connection of the Appellant’s extended absence with his disabilities. His hospital admission included treatment for bronchial asthma. He was treated with oxygen and nebulisers.