McCue v Glasgow City Council (Scotland) [2023] UKSC 1 (11 January 2023)
Citation:McCue v Glasgow City Council (Scotland) [2023] UKSC 1 (11 January 2023)
Rule of thumb:What is the basic starting point for making a discrimination legal claim in the UK under the Equality Act 2010? The basic starting point is you need a comparator – you need to be able to say, ‘person A & person B faced identical scenarios, and person B was treated differently & worse than person A’ – person B therefore has a prima facie claim in these circumstances. If a person cannot point to another person who was treated differently, then their claim cannot get off the ground at all & should be struck out.
Background facts:McCue argued that this fee for care-services was so high that it grossly infringed upon disabled’s chance to have a decent life because they could barely afford to do anything with the price for those services, so McCue argued that this was a breach of Equality Act 2010, as disabled people just could not have close to the life standard which non-disabled everyday people have. Glasgow City Council affirmed that they took their prices from the 1968 Act. They further argued that these were just the standard price which these services were deemed to be, and that was the market value they were deemed by Parliament to have.
Parties argued:The basic facts were that McCue was the Mother of a person who was disabled person. Any time the disabled person wanted to do something in society than the services of a carer were required – McCue felt the prices she was being charged by carers for the services was excessive, and it meant that it was virtually commercially impossible with the money her child had to have anything like a decent life when all the costs of being able to do anything were all added up.
Court held:The Court upheld the arguments of the Glasgow City Council. They empathised with the difficult life situation McCue’s child, and did affirm that McCue had moving moral arguments, however, there was no clear & direct comparison to show different treatment due to a disability, meaning that they could not uphold the argument under the Equality Act 2010. In short, the treatment of disabled people in the UK is a national disgrace, but the law has been written and designed by the Westminster UK Parliament like to be like this, with the democratic will of people of the UK being that disabled people should only be given payments to have a poor & sparse incident, but it is not actually in breach of any laws as such, so there is nothing the Court can do as mere law-appliers.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘The question then is whether that practice puts Mr McCue, as a disabled person, at a disadvantage so far as concerns setting charges for services provided by the Council in comparison with persons who are not disabled. In my view, it is clear that it does not. This is for the simple reason that the practice only applies to disabled people. As a distinct practice … it does not allow for any comparison to be made with the treatment of persons who are not disabled, so there is no scope for the application of section 20(3)…’, Lord Sales at 74
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.