A DISABLED Oldbury couple have won a High Court battle against Sandwell Council which could help thousands of people on disability benefits across the country.

Harry and Jane Hardy challenged the council's policy of taking disability benefits into account when assessing housing support after having their benefits slashed due to the bedroom tax.

In the High Court yesterday (Monday), Mr Justice Phillips ruled that the policy of taking into account the care component of Disability Living Allowance is unlawful and amounts to a breach of the European Convention On Human Rights.

Fiona McGhie, the couple's Irwin Mitchell's specialist public lawyer, said: "The council’s policy has been struck down as being unlawful. Where the bedroom tax leaves a black hole in a disabled person’s household budget – the council cannot demand that they fill that black hole with DLA.

"The decision is an important one which provides important clarity on whether councils should include disability related benefits as income when considering applications for DHP to help with housing costs."

She added: "This ruling has ensured that the voices of our clients have been heard and I believe the decision will have far-reaching consequences for a number of local authorities adopting similar policies.

"It is vital that the welfare of vulnerable people always comes first and every council should ensure this is a core focus."

The couple have lived in their council home, which has been altered to meet their disability needs, for 20 years but were willing to move to a smaller place, however, there were no properties suitable for them.

Sandwell Council’s policy meant that, due to receiving the care component of DLA, they would only receive a small amount of DHP, which still left them with a shortfall that they had to find every week.

Mr Justice Phillips said the council's policy “constitutes a failure to exercise the council’s discretion and fetters any future exercise of that discretion.”

He added: “The council’s approach treats disabled applicants and their disability-related income in exactly the same way as it treats others and their non-disability related incomes, giving rise to unfavourable treatment to the disabled applicants.”

Mrs McGhie added: "We have long-believed this issue is a no-win situation – our clients were given a small amount of DHP due to receiving the care component of DLA, and therefore had to use disability benefits to meet costs which should be met by housing support.

"Sandwell Council’s policy meant our clients were in a really difficult situation, as not only had they been adversely affected by the bedroom tax, but they also then faced further hardship as a result of having less DLA to spend on their care needs."

Neeraj Sharma, Sandwell Council's director of governance, said: “We welcome this judgement.

"Like many other local authorities, we took the care component of DLA into account as income when calculating DHP.

She added: "Sandwell was used as a test case and this now clarifies the situation for us and for other councils up and down the country.

"We will be changing our policy to ensure DLA is no longer taken into account.”