Muhammad Hasnain v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Facts

The appellant, Muhammad Hasnain, acting by his appointee Kosar Parveen, challenged a decision of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions dated 2 February 2024 which had refused him the daily living component of personal independence payment, scoring only six daily living points, while awarding him the enhanced rate of the mobility component from 6 March 2024 to 18 January 2027 on twelve points under mobility descriptor 1f. The only issue raised on the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal was whether he qualified for further daily living points. The First-tier Tribunal heard the appeal at Bradford on 27 January 2025 and refused it, but recorded doubts about whether the appellant had epilepsy at the material time, saying it would not itself have awarded points on that basis but, the Secretary of State not having put the award in issue, it elected to leave the points in place. The appointee applied for that decision to be set aside, and on 13 February 2025 Judge McDonald set it aside, saying the tribunal could not justify its decision in a statement of reasons and was content to set aside a decision it had been unhappy to make. On 9 May 2025 a freshly constituted tribunal refused the appeal but went further, scoring nil points under both components and removing the award altogether. The Upper Tribunal granted permission to appeal against both the set aside decision and the substantive decision, and the Secretary of State supported the appeal.