Begum, R (On the Application Of) v London Borough of Tower Hamlets (2024) EWHC 2279 (Admin

A brief note on this judicial review – brief in part because I’m not sure I actually grasp part of the challenge.

Ms Begum had applied as homeless to Tower Hamlets in 2021. She was given temporary accommodation in a studio flat. 5 months later her first child was born. In June 2022, she complained about the suitability of the studio, which at that time was still s.188 accommodation. In October 2022, Tower Hamlets accepted the full duty. An internal memo recorded that Ms B had requested a transfer due to overcrowding. By March 2023, Ms B was pregnant with her second child, with a due date in September 2023. Between May and July 2023 there was correspondence between Ms B’s solicitors and Tower Hamlets on the suitability of the accommodation. The present claim was issued and interim relief ordered in August 2023. Three days later, Tower Hamlets made an offer of accommodation which Ms B accepted.

Shelter were given permission to intervene in the claim.

Ms B’s case was

a) That she had been left in unsuitable accommodation between October 2022 and August 2023.

b) That Tower Hamlets had a provision, criterion or practice (PCP) that was discriminatory and/or in breach of the public sector equality duty, in that it had “(a) the practice of operating a database for homeless applicants who seek a transfer (‘the transfer list’) and providing to some or all of those applicants unsuitable accommodation while they remain on the list, and (b) more broadly, the Defendant’s ‘system of allocating temporary accommodation to homeless applicants’.”

This PCP was alleged to discriminate against women homeless applicants, where the comparator was a male homeless applicant. (As far as I can make out from the judgment, the complaint appeared to be that women with children are affected by homelessness more than men with children by being left in unsuitable temporary accommodation. I have to say this is not set out clearly in the judgment).

Tower Hamlets accepted that Ms B had been in unsuitable accommodation from June 2023 to August 2023, but said this was in any event academic.

On the alleged PCP, Tower Hamlets said that including information in a database was not, by itself a PCP. But even if it were, there was no disadvantage to the Claimant. The database wasn’t a waiting list. The comparator put forward by the claimant was wrong, as men were less likely to be in priority need overall. Finally, the claimant had failed to show that a hypothetical male homeless applicant with children would be more likely to receive an offer of permanent accommodation than a woman with children as a result of the PCP and no such evidence had been shown.

On the unsuitability of accommodation, the court found that the same reasons for Tower Hamlets accepting the property was unsuitable in June 2023 applied in October 2022, so the property was unsuitable from October 2022. But this part of the claim was academic, as Ms B was since housed in suitable accommodation.

On the discrimination/PSED element of the claim, the court found that it was the case that women were more likely to be in temporary accommodation, but, as Shelter’s evidence said “This disparity is caused, at least in part, by the fact that households consisting of single parents with dependent children are over-represented in temporary accommodation and such households are significantly more likely to be headed by women.”

The database was not, in itself, a PCP. It was a tool.

But if that were incorrect, the statistical evidence produced did not show the right comparator

in order to show that more women with children are affected by homelessness than men with children by being left in unsuitable temporary accommodation, it would be necessary to establish that the hypothetical male homeless applicant is statistically more likely to receive an offer of permanent suitable accommodation as a result of being on the database. There is no evidence that that is the case. I am also not satisfied that there is a causal link between the use of the database and the particular disadvantages identified by the Claimant.

On the PSED, not every administrative act required an Equality Act assessment.

Claim dismissed.