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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Residence issues  →  Thread

Judge Jacobs on MET

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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RF v LB Lambeth (HB) [2019] UKUT 52 (AAC)
https://www.gov.uk/administrative-appeals-tribunal-decisions/rf-v-london-borough-of-lambeth-hb-2019-ukut-52-aac

In 2014, the Government invented something called the “Minimum Earnings Threshold” which is a “more robust test” intended to restrict EEA migrants’ access to benefits by narrowing who ought to be considered a “worker” or “self-employed person”.

Of course, if you actually read the test - it does no such thing. All it does is define a level of earnings beyond which no reasonable person could argue that the work is not “genuine and effective” and establish that where this point is reached, no further enquiries are needed. However, if that point has not been reached, then it is for the DM to decide if the work is “genuine and effective” according to EU law - i.e. the exact same tests which have always applied.

But its an incredibly effective piece of spin in that, even years later, many front line decision makers seem totally unaware that there is that second part to the test which they must still consider. To the point that they are apparently prepared to submit as much to the Upper Tribunal.

So it is perhaps helpful to see Judge Jacobs definitively confirm the position.

The summary on the AAC website (which I think is provided personally by the Judge) might suffice:

Minimum Earnings Threshold is guidance and not law. It contains a concession by the Secretary of State that a claimant has a right to reside if the Threshold is met. If it is not met, the claimant’s status as employed or self-employed has to be decided by reference to the criteria set out in the EU case law. The local authority and the tribunal decided that the claimant did not have a right to reside because the Threshold was not met. That was wrong.

 

 

[ Edited: 28 Mar 2019 at 08:00 pm by Elliot Kent ]
Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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It’s astonishing that this had to go to the UT - and Judge Jacobs is pretty scathing about the way it was dealt with by the LA and the FtT. I think you are suggesting that the government always intended the MET to have this effect, and I completely agree - the fact that it includes the word “minimum” is a bit of a giveaway. If they’d meant it to be a way of helping to make it easier to make positive decisions on genuine and effective work, they’d have called it something like the automatic entitlement threshold.