CB, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

The statutory duty to provide asylum support requires an objective minimum standard sufficient to meet essential living needs and maintain a dignified standard of living. Beyond that minimum, the Secretary of State retains evaluative latitude. A reduction in real terms from a level previously regarded as the bare minimum requires justification by a careful investigation. The decision-maker must use a rational, evidence-based method addressing the actual essential costs of the relevant cohort. An ongoing duty requires review when materially changed conditions indicate that the existing rate may be inadequate. The court must supervise legality without prescribing the rate, but may make a mandatory order where the minimum lawful action is reliably established by the Secretary of State’s own assessment.

The claimant, an asylum seeker supported under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, challenged the weekly cash allowance of £40.85 introduced by the Asylum Support (Amendment) Regulations 2022. She alleged that the decision unlawfully replaced an established evidence-based methodology with general CPI uprating, involved inadequate inquiry, and followed an unfair consultation process.

She also contended that the Secretary of State had failed to review or increase the rate after February 2022 despite rapidly rising living costs. The central questions were whether the original uprating decision was lawful and whether the continuing failure to reconsider and increase support breached the statutory duty.

1. Issue (2): continuing duty. The Secretary of State’s duty under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 was ongoing. The substantial increase in CPI and food prices, together with the interim reviews and ministerial advice, required a decision. Failing to decide whether the rate should be increased was an abdication of function and a failure to consider relevant matters. The continuing failure to review and ensure adequacy was unlawful.
2. Mandatory relief. The court ordinarily must respect the Secretary of State’s evaluative function and must not prescribe the rate. Here, however, the Secretary of State’s own annual review concluded that £40.85 did not meet essential living costs, identified £45 as the amount required, and treated doing nothing as unlawful. The court therefore ordered an immediate interim increase by 10.1%, reflecting the Secretary of State’s communicated decision.
3. Issue (1), Ground (i). The existing methodology identified the essential needs of an average asylum seeker and carefully assessed the actual cost of necessary items. The decision gave no convincing reason why general CPI was a better measure of increases in those costs. Its reliance on CPI as a standard measure used elsewhere in government did not answer that question. The decision therefore lacked the careful investigation and rational justification required for a real-terms reduction from the previously assessed minimum.
4. Other grounds. Ground (ii) failed because the inquiry into the existing methodology and CPI was reasonably sufficient; the defect lay in the reasoning and justification. Ground (iii) failed. There was no freestanding legal duty to reconsult when the methodology changed, although the ultimate decision still had to be rational and based on sufficient inquiry.
5. The court declared the £40.85 decision unlawful, declared the continuing failure to review and increase the rate unlawful, ordered the interim increase, and awarded the claimant her reasonable costs.

First-instance judicial review proceedings in the Administrative Court. No appeal history was stated in the judgment.