Where to draw the line

Two recent appeal cases concerning whether welfare benefit entitlement can be subject to discrimination led to very different outcomes. In Humphreys v The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2012] UKSC 18, [2012] All ER (D) 124 (May), a father whose children spent three days a week with him challenged the rule that child tax credit can only be paid to one person, even where the care of the child is shared. It was accepted that the rule indirectly discriminates against fathers because they are statistically more likely than mothers to be the parent with fewer days’ responsibility in a shared-care arrangement. The question for the Supreme Court was whether the discrimination could be justified, or whether there was a violation of Art 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), taken with Art 1 of the First Protocol (A1P1).

In Ian Burnip and others v Birmingham City Council and others and the Secretary of State for