When children don't count

Ms Morris is a British citizen by descent. She has a two-year-old daughter who is a citizen of Mauritius. The pair were made homeless when asked to leave by their relatives and Morris applied to Westminster for housing for them both.

The council decided that she was homeless but did not have a priority need for accommodation because section 185(4) of the 1996 Housing Act says that a person from abroad who is subject to immigration control is to be disregarded in working out priority need. Although a person with a dependant child would normally have priority need, Morris's daughter did not count.

Morris was exceptionally given permission to claim a judicial review in the High Court instead of having to appeal to the local county court. The judge rejected a number of technical arguments about the legislation and decided that it did mean that Morris had no priority need.

That raised the question of whether the law was discriminating unlawfully against Morris – contrary to Article 14 of the Human Rights Act – because if her child had been of British nationality, she would have counted. The judge directed that the ODPM should be given formal notice that this issue needed to be decided at a future hearing.