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

Facts

The claimants are a family of Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers accommodated by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under sections 95-96 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. BM and SL arrived in the United Kingdom in March 2022 with their son MB; a second child was born in April 2022 and a third in July 2025. After a period in a Brighton hotel, the family was moved in June 2022 to a two-bedroom self-contained flat in Oxford, where they remain. MB, now 8, attends a local primary school which supports his special educational needs and disabilities, and receives weekly in-person psychotherapy from Dr Rassman, who works with the Oxford charity Refugee Resource; he is on the waiting list for a CAMHS neuro-developmental assessment. SL has post-traumatic stress disorder, post-natal depression and generalised anxiety disorder, and has attended weekly sessions with a counselling psychotherapist at Refugee Resource since August 2023. It is common ground that the flat is now too cramped for five people. The Secretary of State offered larger self-contained properties in various south-east towns, including Milton Keynes, Battle, Canterbury and Reading, all of which the family refused, contending they need accommodation in the Oxford area. The family brought judicial review of three decisions manifesting that refusal, and Cutts J ordered an expedited rolled-up hearing.