Powers - provision of accommodation - persons unlawfully present with dependent children - no power to house indefinitely

R (M) v London Borough of Islington and another: QBD (Mr Justice Wilson): 5 June 2003

The claimant had come from Guyana in 1998 on a six-month visitor's visa and, in 1999, married a man who had been granted indefinite leave to reside in the UK.

Following their separation, she had continued to live in their council flat with their child.

In March 2003, it became clear that she was no longer lawfully present in the UK.

The defendant local authority offered to provide accommodation for up to 21 days, pursuant to regulation 3(3) of the Withholding and Withdrawal of Support (Travel Assistance and Temporary Accommodation) Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/3078), made under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and, concluding that return was necessary to avoid breaching the claimant's convention rights and was in the child's best interests, to fund the purchase of one-way tickets to Guyana under section 17 of the Children Act 1989.

The claimant applied for declarations that the decisions were unlawful.

Stephen Knafler (instructed by Pierce Glynn) for the claimant; Bryan McGuire and Paul Turner (instructed by Head of the Legal Department, London Borough of Islington) for the local authority; Kristina Stern (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the secretary of state.

Held, declining to grant the application relating to accommodation, that it would seldom be lawful for local authorities to provide accommodation on an indefinite basis for persons unlawfully in the UK with dependent children, particularly when there was no reason to believe that removal directions would be issued in the near future; and, granting the application to quash the ticket purchase decision, that, since there was insufficient evidence on the likely circumstances of the child and the claimant in Guyana and a failure to consider the father's position, the local authority should reconsider the exercise of its powers under section 17.