Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber)

You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) >> Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v LC [2011] UKUT 108 (AAC) (14 March 2011)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/AAC/2011/108.html
Cite as: [2011] UKUT 108 (AAC)

[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v LC [2011] UKUT 108 (AAC) (14 March 2011)
Residence and presence conditions
right to reside

Order of the Upper Tribunal
(Administrative Appeals Chamber)

The following questions are referred to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:

In circumstances where a claimant:

(a) is a citizen of Poland;

(b) came to the United Kingdom before her country acceded to the EU;

(d) remained here, and continued in self-employment, following accession;

(e) is no longer in self-employment; and

(f) is the primary carer of a child who came to the United Kingdom and entered general education after accession and after she ceased to be established in self-employment,

does the claimant have a right to reside in the United Kingdom on the basis that (individually or cumulatively):

(a) Regulation 1612/68 applies, together with the reasoning of the European Court of Justice in Baumbast and R v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Case C-413/99) [2002] ECR I-7091, London Borough of Harrow v Ibrahim (Case C-310/08) and Teixeira v London Borough of Lambeth (Case C-480/08);

(b) there is a general principle of EU law that equates the position of workers and the self-employed;

Reasons for Reference

A. Why the questions are referred

1. The questions referred arise in a number of cases. This case is appropriate for a reference on account of the quality of the claimant’s representation and arguments. The Secretary of State, of course, always has the benefit of experienced representatives, but the assistance available to claimants varies.

2. I have attempted in the questions referred, in these reasons and in the Common Appendix to be consistent in using the word ‘worker’ in its narrow sense and not as a general term covering those engaged in economic activity regardless of whether on an employed or self-employed basis.

B. The appeal

3. This appeal was brought by the Secretary of State, with the permission of the First-tier Tribunal, against the decision of that tribunal in the claimant’s favour.

4. I held an oral hearing on 16 September 2010. The Secretary of State was represented by Ms Deok Joo Rhee of counsel and the claimant was represented by Ms Gwyneth King, a solicitor-advocate at the Mary Ward Legal Centre. I am grateful to them both their written and oral arguments. The appeal was heard at the same time as the appeal in Punakova (CIS/2537/2009).

5. Following the hearing, I decided to refer questions to the European Court of Justice. I allowed the parties a chance to comment on my draft questions and reasons. Both Ms Rhee and Ms King have done so. I am grateful to them for their submissions. I have essentially accepted Ms Rhee’s suggestions. I have made a number of changes to reflect some of the points made by Ms King. However, I have not made the detailed additions that she has suggested to the questions referred or to the arguments in the Common Appendix. As to the questions, they are wide enough to allow the European Court of Justice to provide the answers required and the Court can, in any event, identify additional issues. As to the arguments, they are but a summary and do not bind the parties or the European Court of Justice; Ms King will be able to present any arguments she wishes on the reference.

6. Ms King continues to represent the claimant, but has now moved to the Citizens Advice Trafford Specialist Unit.

C. The claimant’s circumstances

7. In his Order, I refer to the claimant’s ‘former partner’, as they were separated (at least geographically) at the times relevant to this case. He has since returned to this country and they are living together as a couple. The claimant says that they remained committed to their relationship throughout.

8. The claimant is a citizen of Poland, which acceded to the EU on 1 May 2004. Since that date, the claimant has also been a citizen of the European Union. She arrived in the United Kingdom in 2002 on a student visa. On 8 December 2002, she was granted leave to remain without recourse to public funds. This was renewed on 28 April 2004. She was self-employed from 2003 to November 2005. She has four children. Three were born in the United Kingdom in 2003, 2005 and 2006. Her eldest was born in 1994. He joined her and entered education in 2006. None of her children were in education in the United Kingdom when she was in self-employment between 2003 and 2005. This was accepted as correct at the hearing before me.

9. The claimant’s partner was self-employed between 2002 and 2007, after which he was imprisoned and then extradited. My recollection is that Ms King did not rely on his circumstances to support the claimant’s right to reside. She says that that is not correct and that he was in self-employment when the child entered education. However, as Ms Rhee has pointed out, he is not the father of the child in question. In any event, the answers to the questions referred will, in large part, be relevant to any right to reside on this alternative basis.

10. The claimant has been sporadically engaged in ‘activity’, to use a neutral work. She did not register in any respect of this activity under the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2004 (SI No 1219). Those Regulations are made under the authority of the European Union (Accession) Act 2003 in exercise of the powers of derogation contained in Annex V of the Treaty of Accession for Poland. Ms King did not rely on this activity to support the claimant’s right to reside, either as a worker or a self-employed person. Nor did she argue that her activities while self-employed made her a worker in EU law.

11. Ms King accepted that she could not readily establish that the claimant had a permanent right to reside.

12. There is a possibility that the claimant could establish a right to reside on the basis of her former partner’s employment. However, the facts have not been found to support such a right and it will be difficult to obtain the evidence to do so this long after the events. The Secretary of State has declined to concede the case on that basis. This is because: (i) although it was accepted that the claimant’s former partner worked in the United Kingdom between 2002 and 2007, it could not be established whether he had completed 12 months’ registered work within the meaning of the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2004; and (ii) her former partner was not the father of the child in question (who in any event arrived in the United Kingdom to join his mother in 2006 shortly before entering education here.

D. The claim for income support

13. The claimant made a claim for income support on 29 May 2008, but this was refused on 20 June 2008. She returned to self-employment in September 2008, so the case only concerns her entitlement from May to September 2008.

14. The Secretary of State refused the claim on the ground that the claimant was a person from abroad. As such, her applicable amount was nil. Entitlement to income support is calculated by reference to this amount. The effect of a nil amount is that the claimant is not entitled to income support. This is the effect of the following legislation.

15. Income support was established by the Social Security Act 1986. The relevant provisions have been consolidated by the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992.

16. Section 124(1) of the 1992 Act provides:

‘(1) A person in Great Britain is entitled to income support if-

…

(b) he has no income or his income does not exceed the applicable amount.’

17. Section 135 provides:

‘(1) The applicable amount, in relation to any income-related benefit, shall be such amount or the aggregate of such amounts as may be prescribed in relation to that benefit.

(2) The power to prescribe applicable amounts conferred by subsection (1) above includes power to prescribe nil as an applicable amount.’

18. The Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 are made, in part, under that authority. Paragraph 17 of Schedule 7 to those Regulations prescribes that the applicable amount for a ‘person from abroad’ is nil.

19. ‘Person from abroad’ is defined by regulation 21AA. This has been the governing provision since 30 April 2006. At the time of the claim in this case, it read:

‘Special cases: supplemental – persons from abroad

21AA.—(1) “Person from abroad” means, subject to the following provisions of this regulation, a claimant who is not habitually resident in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic of Ireland.

(2) No claimant shall be treated as habitually resident in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic of Ireland unless he has a right to reside in (as the case may be) the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic of Ireland other than a right to reside which falls within paragraph (3).

(3) A right to reside falls within this paragraph if it is one which exists by virtue of, or in accordance with, one or more of the following—

(a) regulation 13 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006;

(b) regulation 14 of those Regulations, but only in a case where the right exists under that regulation because the claimant is—

(i) a jobseeker for the purpose of the definition of "qualified person" in regulation 6(1) of those Regulations, or

(ii) a family member (within the meaning of regulation 7 of those Regulations) of such a jobseeker;

(d) Article 39 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (in a case where the claimant is a person seeking work in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or the Republic of Ireland).

(4) A claimant is not a person from abroad if he is—

(a) a worker for the purposes of Council Directive No. 2004/38/EC;

(b) a self-employed person for the purposes of that Directive;

(d) a person who is a family member of a person referred to in sub-paragraph (a), (b) or (c) within the meaning of Article 2 of that Directive;

(e) a person who has a right to reside permanently in the United Kingdom by virtue of Article 17 of that Directive;

(f) a person who is treated as a worker for the purpose of the definition of "qualified person" in regulation 6(1) of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 pursuant to—

(i) regulation 5 of the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2004 (application of the 2006 Regulations in relation to a national of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia or the Slovak Republic who is an "accession State worker requiring registration"), or

(ii) regulation 6 of the Accession (Immigration and Worker Authorisation) Regulations 2006 (right of residence of a Bulgarian or Romanian who is an "accession State national subject to worker authorisation");

(g) a refugee within the definition in Article 1 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees done at Geneva on 28th July 1951, as extended by Article 1(2) of the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees done at New York on 31st January 1967;

(h) a person who has exceptional leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom granted outside the rules made under section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971;

(hh) a person who has humanitarian protection granted under those rules;

(i) a person who is not a person subject to immigration control within the meaning of section 115(9) of the Immigration and Asylum Act and who is in the United Kingdom as a result of his deportation, expulsion or other removal by compulsion of law from another country to the United Kingdom; or

(j) a person in Great Britain who left the territory of Montserrat after 1st November 1995 because of the effect on that territory of a volcanic eruption.’

20. The operation of these provisions is this:

· Claimants who come within regulation 21AA(4) are not persons from abroad. They will all have the right to reside and do not have to be habitually resident.

· In order to be entitled to income support, anyone else must be habitually resident (regulation 21AA(1)). If they are not, they are persons from abroad and not entitled to income support.

· In order to be habitually resident, they must have a right to reside (regulation 21AA(2)). If they do not, they are persons from abroad and not entitled to income support.

· But persons who come within regulation 21AA(3) cannot have a right to reside and cannot, therefore, be habitually resident, As a result, they are persons from abroad and not entitled to income support.

E. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal

21. The tribunal allowed the claimant’s appeal and decided that she had a right to reside, and was habitually resident, in the United Kingdom. She was not, therefore, a person from abroad and was entitled to income support, provided that she satisfied the other conditions of entitlement. The judge made this decision on three grounds.

22. First, the claimant had been lawfully resident for five years and, therefore, had a permanent right of residence. Ms King did not seek to support this ground.

23. Second, the claimant had been a worker and had retained her worker status. This is not sustainable, because the claimant was self-employed and not a worker.

24. Third, the judge alluded to the line of authorities based on Baumbast and R v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Case C-413/99) [2002] ECR I-7091.

F. The appeal to the Upper Tribunal

25. The Secretary of State applied for permission to appeal in respect of all three grounds for the tribunal’s decision.

G. Worker registration

26. Ms Rhee argued that Annex V and the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2004 apply to the self-employed as well as to the employed. (There is no doubt that they apply to workers.) The Annex applied, she argued, to the protection of the labour market, which was not narrowly defined.

27. Ms King argued that this was inconsistent with the terms of Annex V, which are limited to Article 45 TFEU (ex Article 39 TEC) and Articles 1 to 6 of Regulation 1612/68. Annex V contains derogations from the freedom of movement and right to reside for EU citizens. As such it must be interpreted narrowly.

28. Ms King did not argue that any work as a self-employed person gave a claimant from Poland (or any other A8 country) any better rights than those of a person in employment. Her argument was that the time for which the claimant had worked put her in an equivalent position to a person who has worked in registered employment for more than the required 12 months.

29. On the scope of Annex V, I reject Ms Rhee’s argument and accept Ms King’s. As the derogations in Annex V have to be narrowly interpreted, they do not extend beyond those expressly mentioned. Even if Annex V does apply to the self-employed, the domestic Regulations do not. They are clearly and expressly limited to workers.

30. As to equating the employed and self-employed, I understand the thinking behind Ms King’s submission. If Article 12 does not apply to the self-employed, they are treated differently from workers. It may be that they can acquire a right to reside by different reasoning, but that more general reasoning might be equally applicable to workers. If it were, it might override or bypass the limitations in the Baumbast line of authorities.

H. The four arguments

31. There are at least four arguments that support a right to reside for the claimant. They are common to both cases referred and are based on: (i) Regulation 1612/68 and the Baumbast line of authorities; (ii) the caselaw in which the European Court of Justice has equated workers and the self-employed; (iii) the caselaw of the European Court of Justice that prohibits action that impedes or deters the exercise of a fundamental right; and (iv) Directive 2004/38.

I. The first argument

32. This argument relies on Regulation 1612/68 and the Baumbast lines of authorities. If the right to reside sought by the claimants had been based on residence as a worker, the issue would have arisen under Baumbast and R v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Case C-413/99) [2002] ECR I-7091, London Borough of Harrow v Ibrahim (Case C-310/08) and Teixeira v London Borough of Lambeth (Case C-480/08). Those cases involved the coincidence of a parent of a child being a worker at a time when the child was in education. The child acquired a right to education under Article 12 of Regulation 1612/68:

‘The children of a national of a Member State who is or has been employed in the territory of another Member State shall be admitted to that State’s general educational, apprenticeship and vocational training courses under the same conditions as the nationals of that State, if such children are residing in its territory.

Member States shall encourage all efforts to enable such children to attend these courses under the best possible conditions.’

The child’s primary carer then acquired a right to reside in order to render effective the child’s right to education. The carer may or may not be the parent whose work gave rise to the child’s right.

33. In Czop, Ms King’s argument at the hearing differed in some respects from her earlier written argument. She argued that Regulation 1612/68 applied in this case. She referred to the parts of the preamble and Articles that did not use the term worker. She bolstered this by referring to the third paragraph of the preamble to Directive 2004/38, arguing that this changed the context in which Regulation 1612/68 had to be interpreted. The focus, she argued, was now on the market as a whole with the same fundamental rights for all those who participated in the market. Ms King also referred to the precise wording of Article 12. First, she pointed out that on its wording it applies to children of a person who is ‘or has been’ a worker. She argued that it would therefore apply to a child whose entered education after the parent ceased to be a worker. Second, she pointed out that on its wording it depends on the parent being ‘employed’. She argued that this was wider than worker and included the self-employed. Referring to Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, Ms King argued that the respect of family life applied equally to workers and the self-employed.

34. Ms Rhee argued that Article 12 did not apply to the self-employed. She described Ms King’s argument as inconsistent with the scheme of Regulation 1612/68 and the wording of Article 12.

35. I prefer Ms Rhee’s argument. The language used in the Regulation varies: sometimes it says ‘worker’, sometimes it says ‘employed’. Despite the variation, the overall language and purpose is limited to workers. However, as other issues arise that justify a reference to the European Court of Justice, I have included the scope of Regulation 1612/68 and the Baumbast line of authorities in the questions posed.

J. The second argument

36. This argument relies on the caselaw of the European Court of Justice that equates the position of workers and the self-employed. In Punakova, Mr Tegg cited a number of authorities in which the European Court of Justice has treated workers and the self-employed as having equivalent rights and status.

37. Having considered the authorities cited by Mr Tegg, I am unsure whether there is a principle of general application that workers and the self-employed have equivalent status for all purposes. If there is, it would seem to undermine the separate Treaty bases and legislative treatment. Also, if there is not a principle of general application, I am not sure in what circumstances the cases cited apply.

K. The third argument

38. This argument relies on the caselaw of the European Court of Justice that recognises freedom of movement and establishment as fundamental concepts of EU law. These rights must be fully effective. Accordingly, Member States are not permitted to take action that would impede the exercise of those rights or deter anyone from exercising them. For example, the European Court of Justice found that there had been deterrence in R v Immigration Appeal Tribunal, ex parte Secretary of State for the Home Department (Case C-370/90). The husband, who was Indian, had married a British national in the United Kingdom. They had moved to work in Germany and then returned to the United Kingdom to open a business. Their return to the United Kingdom was in exercise of their domestic law rights, not EC rights. The issue arose whether the husband had a right to reside in the United Kingdom, which he would have under EU law as the spouse of a national of a Member State. The Court decided (paragraph 23) that the right of freedom of movement had to be fully effective and that a national of State A would be deterred from exercising the right of free movement to leave that State to work in State B if, on return to the home State, a spouse were not accorded the same right to reside as would be granted under EC law. Accordingly, the United Kingdom was required to give the husband that right.

39. I note that this analysis was not used in the Baumbast line of authorities. That may merely reflect the questions posed for the European Court of Justice. I also note that there was no inquiry whether there was actual deterrence in the Immigration Appeal Tribunal case; on the facts, it seems that there was not. Nor was the wife exercising an EU right when she returned to the United Kingdom; she did so under domestic law. And in Zambrano v Office national de l’emploi (ONEm) (Case C-34/09), the Grand Chamber decided that it was to be assumed that there would be an impediment to the effective right of EU citizenship for children whose parent might have to leave their national State (paragraph 44). However, there must be something more than a merely theoretical impediment or deterrence. In Moser v Land Baden-Württemberg (Case 180/83) [1984] ECR 2539, Mr Moser was a German who was refused access to post-graduate training in order to become a teacher, because he was a member of the Communist Party. He argued that this was contrary to European law. On a reference, the European Court of Justice decided that EC law did not apply, because (paragraph 15) the issue that arose was ‘wholly internal to a Member State, in other words there is no factor connecting them to any of the situations envisaged by Community law.’ Mr Moser argued that there was an impediment to the exercise of his right of freedom of movement, as his inability to qualify as a teacher would prevent him from being able to move to take up work in another Member State. The Court rejected this as a ‘purely hypothetical prospect’ and insufficient (paragraph 18).

40. Does this reasoning apply to these cases? Does it matter that, in Czop, the claimant’s partner was already in self-employment at the time of accession and did not exercise an EU right in order to establish himself here? Does it matter that in Czop the claimant’s son came to the United Kingdom only after she ceased to be established in self-employment? Does it matter that the claimant established herself in self-employment before accession (albeit that she remained established in self-employment after accession)? Does it matter that, in Punakova, the claimant established herself in self-employment only after accession and did not move here in order to do so? Is it necessary for there to be some exercise of an EU right in order to trigger the right to reside? Would there be sufficient connection with an EU right to do any of the following after accession: (i) to remain here (Czop and Punakova); (ii) to remain here in reliance on an EU right in order to be free from the ‘no recourse to public funds’ condition (Czop); (iii) to set up in self-employment (Punakova); (iv) or to bring a child here (Czop)?

L. The fourth argument

41. This argument relies on Directive 2004/38, Article 12(3) provides:

‘The Union citizen’s departure from the host Member State or his/her death shall not entail loss of the right of residence of his/her children or of the parent who has actual custody of the children, irrespective of nationality, if the children reside in the host Member State and are enrolled at an educational establishment, for the purpose of studying there, until the completion of their studies.’

42. This is a codification of the Baumbast decision, but it is wider. It extends Baumbast, as it is not limited to workers. On my reading, the right may derive from any Union citizen who has the right of residence and that right may arise from work or self-employment. Nor is it tied to the scope of Regulation 1612/68.

43. It is clear from Ibrahim and Teixeira that the Baumbast caselaw survives the coming into force of the Directive. It is not replaced or limited by the Directive. However, this produces the apparently anomalous result that someone who is the primary carer for a child of a self-employed person has the limited benefit of the Directive, but not the broader benefit of the caselaw. I wonder if the focus on Regulation 1612/68 in the caselaw merely reflects the way that the questions were posed to the Court. Is the Directive an indication that there is a broader principle that is not limited to workers?

Signed on original
on 14 March 2011

Edward Jacobs
Upper Tribunal Judge