Nina Goswami
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld a House of Lords ruling that the UK Government did not act unlawfully by refusing to pay widows’ benefits to two widowers.
George Runkee and Brian White had applied for a definitive answer as to whether husbands could receive the equivalent of widows’ benefits.
The widowers’ claim came following the Lords ruling in R (Hooper & Ors) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2005).
If the claimants had been widows they would have been entitled to claim widow’s payment under Section 36 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992; widowed mother’s allowance under Section 37; and widow’s pension under Section 38.
Runkee’s and White’s counsel submitted to the Strasbourg court that the claimants would be entitled to a payout if they were women. They argued that, by denying the benefits, the Secretary of State had acted in a way that was incompatible with their rights in relation to discrimination and the right to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The claimants said the Secretary of State should have used his common law powers to enforce equality on this matter.
The House of Lords, however, ruled that Parliament’s position was unambiguous and that the law should relate to widows alone, therefore the Government would have gone beyond its powers to use common law. The ECHR concurred with the Lords and dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the 1992 act was compatible with the convention.
Christopher Whomersley from the legal department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office instructed Philip Sales QC of 11 King’s Bench Walk and Jemima Stratford of Brick Court Chambers against Runkee and White.
The two widowers taking the case forward to the ECHR both had dependent children, therefore the Child Poverty Action Group took forward the action in relation to Section 37. Dinah Rose of Blackstone Chambers was instructed by Child Poverty legal officer Stewart Wright.
Readers' comments (2)
Humphrey Woods | 7-Dec-2008 1:55 am
Inequality of N.I. pension for widowed fathers
Neither White nor Runkee had dependent-aged offspring at the time of their bereavement, so the ECtHR test case was unrepresentative of the problems facing many fathers who were widowed pre-2001 with young children.
Like their female counterparts, many such men were obliged to compromise their careers and future earning capacity to care for their young children themselves, both lacking at that time in history any 'welfare to work' subsidy for the intensive childcare that would have enabled them to retain a developing career and a realistic pension.
The effect of the ECtHR's ruling (and the government's continuing resistance to male equality) is that when their youngest child finishes non-advanced education, many widowed fathers (and their young adult families) are impoverished overnight, denied the rescue of the transitional widow's pension that women of the same era can claim.
Far from being a welfare relic, the widow's pension will be available as a new benefit - for women only - for many years to come and should still be in payment for some in 2035.
For widowers whose children aspire to university, the govermnment's discriminatory obsession is a double blow,with income vanishing and parental costs exploding at the same time.
I have brought up my daughter alone from newborn and it grieves me that I have to ask her to postpone her university place simply to keep my widowed parent's allowance going for another precious year.
Aged sixty and with a part-time job that pays me not a penny more than the women I work alongside, I am anxious to know how my supposed 'male advantage' will save me after this insane sex discrimination cuts my diminutive income in half. Any ideas?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Garry Stamford | 3-Mar-2011 8:12 am
The whole issue of widows vs widowers pensions seems to be a case of extraordinary discrimination against men.
I have a letter from the treasury stating that "traditionally men work and women do not". How absurd in todays obsessive non discriminatory society.
Does anyone know if the issues around equality which have been reported in the news this week have any bearing on this whole issue.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment