I have a case where the appellant is married to a person who is subject to immigration control and therefore has no recourse to public funds. The appellant is in receipt of IB, a works pension and of middle rate DLA care and has claimed IS but has been turned down due to excess income. However his applicable amount did not include SDP in the calculation and he appealed against the decision on these grounds.
Having checked the IS regulations, it appears that this decision is correct as he is not treated as living alone however Ch30, Part 4 on page 726 of the CPAG Welfare Benefits & Tax Credits Handbook, states that for Pension Credit cases only, "if your partner is a person subject to immigration control, you are treated as not being members of the same household and so cannot count as a couple". This would suggest to me that as they would not be treated as 'members of the same household', that if my appellant was aged to claim Pension Credit, that he would be entitled to SDP.
Is this an anomoly in the system that can be challenged or am I missing something?
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