Social security

Removal of asylum seekers' entitlement to disability living allowance as from specified date - transitional provisions preserving accrued entitlements - asylum seeker previously in receipt of allowance not entitled to have award renewedM (A Minor) v Secretary of State for Social Security: HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Nichols of Birkenhead, Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough, Lord Millett and Lord Scott of Foscote): 5 July 2001The applicant, a severely disabled child born in Pakistan, arrived in the UK with her parents who were given limited leave to enter and subsequently applied for asylum.

She was awarded disability living allowance under the Social Security (Disability Living Allowance) Regulations 1991 for a three-year period from 27 September 1993.

As from 5 February 1996 regulation 4 of the Social Security (Persons from Abroad) Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 1996 prevented those whose right to reside or remain in Britain was subject to limitations from claiming the allowance except where regulation 12(3) of the 1996 regulations applied.

On 7 June 1996, in anticipation of the expiry of her current award, an application was made for the renewal of the applicant's award.

The adjudication officer refused the application on the ground that the applicant was not within the exception in regulation 12(3).

The social security appeal tribunal allowed the applicant's appeal.

The social security commissioner restored the adjudicator's decision.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the applicant's appeal.

She appealed.Andrew Nicol QC and Simon Cox (instructed by Luqmani Thompson & Partners) for the applicant.

Richard Drabble QC (instructed by the Solicitor, Department of Social Security) for the secretary of state.Held, that regulation 12 was a saving or transitional provision concerned to save or preserve accrued rights to benefit to which the claimant had been entitled immediately before the amending regulations came into force, and was limited to the particular claimant's accrued right to the particular benefit which she had then been receiving; that in the applicant's accrued right to disability living allowance under an award which entitled her to receive the allowance of a stated amount for a stated period of three years; that regulation 12(3) did not extend the amount or duration of a claimant's award beyond the amount or term for which it had been awarded and did not apply to new and repeat claims made after the 1996 regulations had come into force, which had to be decided in accordance with the circumstances obtaining at the time of the new claim and any requirements imposed by the regulations then in force; and that R v Chief Adjudication Officer, ex parte B [1999] 1 WLR 1695 had been correctly decided.

(WLR)