Teixeira rides again.

I’ve just had a right to reside case for Income Support overturned prior to appeal following the ECJ judgement in Teixeira and the decision contains the following passages:

“With immediate effect, when Decision Makers are considering whether a claimant has an EU right to reside derived from the rights of a child in education in the UK they should not require that there has been a period when the EEA national or Swiss parent of the child was working and the child was in education at the same time.

The requirement is that the child must have been resident in the UK at the time when an EEA national or Swiss parent was exercising a right to reside in the UK as a worker.  That is sufficient to trigger the EU right of that child to be installed in the general education system of the UK which in turn means that the parent and primary carer has an EU right to reside in the UK in order to render the child’s right effective.

Disallowances made since 23/2/10 that have been made on the basis that there must have been a common period when the parent was in work and the child in general education are erroneous in law”.

It seems we are making progress.

Does this case therefore allow income support to be paid to the EU/Swiss national up until the child is 5 years old as like UK single parents ie once the EU/Swiss child attains 5 years of age then the parent can no longer claim I/S as a crere and must have another right to reside eg be a job seeker or worker etc!

Due to the lowering of the age of the child for IS purposes the Teixeira judgement will not assist many lone parents if they only have one child as the child’s right to reside only founds once he starts general education.  The judgement will mainly assist lone parents who already have a child in general education and who then give birth again.  They will be able to claim IS.  Others would have to claim JSA unless they could qualify by another route.