Case No. UKUT-00414-(IAC)

156. Ms Weston submits that the application of the RL policy to MBT amounts to disability discrimination. The impact of restricted leave, its conditions, and the non-conferral of ILR amounts to disability discrimination, which is, she submits, prohibited by section 29 of the Equality Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”). The Secretary of State does not enjoy the protection of paragraph 16 of Schedule 3 to the 2010 Act, she submits, because the decision under consideration was to grant leave, rather than to refuse it. 157. We consider this submission to be without merit. The application to the Secretary of State was for the applicant to be granted ILR. That application was refused. The refusal of ILR is the primary decision under challenge in this application, and we have considered the lawfulness of that refusal at length in this decision. We have accepted that the refusal was necessary for the “public good”, pursuant to the now well-established objectives of the RL policy’s approach to applications for ILR. Paragraph 16(3)(b) of Schedule 3 is engaged in relation to such a decision “to refuse leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom”. 158. Having refused to grant the applicant ILR, in light of the present barriers to his removability, it was necessary for some form of status to be conferred upon him, and for the respondent to adopt a range of conditions to achieve the objectives of the RL policy. As Ms Weston recognised at the hearing, it would not be lawful for the respondent simply to have allowed the applicant to languish in legal limbo, irremovable, but unwelcome. Some form of status had to be granted: see