This free webinar was brought to you by the Garden Court Chambers Housing Team, ranked in both Band 1 of the Chambers UK Bar Guide 2025 and Tier 1 in the Legal 500 2025.
Watch the recording below:
| Date: | Thursday 9 January 2025 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 5.30pm - 7.00pm |
| Venue: | Online |
| Cost: | Free |
| Areas of Law: | Housing Law |
This webinar addressed the issue of discrimination in the context of housing waiting lists, looking at two recent judicial review challenges:
- R (RR) v Enfield [2024] EWHC 2501 (Admin);
- R (Begum) v Tower Hamlets [2024] EWHC 2279 (Admin).
RR was an allocations challenge. Enfield’s allocations scheme awarded the same level of priority for social housing to all homeless households, regardless of whether there was any disability-related housing need. The High Court held that the scheme was not discriminatory.
Begum was a homelessness judicial review, concerning a ‘transfer list’ of people who needed to be moved to alternative temporary accommodation. Statistical evidence suggested that women were spending longer in unsuitable housing then men. The High Court held that there was no discriminatory policy.
Topics covered included:
- How to identify and define PCPs;
- How to gather and make use of statistical evidence;
- How to prove the broader impact of a PCP;
- How to make use of the ‘reverse burden of proof’ in discrimination claims;
- How substantive discrimination challenges can interact with the public sector equality duty;
- The threshold for establishing a causal link between a policy and a disadvantage;
- The courts’ approaches to justification;
- Practical guidance for running discrimination challenges.
Speaker Bios
Christopher Lambert, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Chair)
Christopher Lambert joined Garden Court Chambers in autumn 2024, having successfully completed pupillage. He is building a broad practice in public and social welfare law, and previously worked as a housing rights caseworker.
Nick Bano, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers
Nick Bano is a member of Garden Court Chambers’ housing team. He has a particular specialism in cases that have an Equality Act dimension. He has acted in many of the key housing and discrimination case, including Forward v Aldwyck, Adesotu v Lewisham and TM v Metropolitan.
Michael Engelhardt-Sprack, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers
Michael Engelhardt-Sprack has recently joined Garden Court Chambers’ housing and employment & discrimination teams. He has a great deal of experience in housing and homelessness cases, and his employment practice has given him particular expertise in anti-discrimination law. He acted for the Claimant in R (Begum) v Tower Hamlets.
