Facts: Mrs Y-Ahmed, a destitute Kurdish asylum-seeker, suffered from spinal cancer and required care and attention. The issue was, whether Westminster was required to provide her with residential accommodation plus essential living needs, care and attention, or whether NASS was required to provide her with accommodation and essential living needs, with Westminster providing care.

Judgment: the House of Lords (Lord Steyn, Slynn, Hoffman, Millett and Rodger) held that:

1) Mrs Y-Ahmed fell prima facie within NAA 1948 s21(1) because her need for care and attention entailed a need to be provided with accommodation. The reasoning in R v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC ex p M1(1997) 30 HLR 10.applied: unless she was given accommodation she would have nowhere to receive care and attention.

2) Mrs Y-Ahmed was not excluded from NAA 1948 s21(1) by section 21(1A) of the Act as her need for care and attention had not arisen solely because she was destitute but also (and largely) because she was ill.

3) The existence of the duty under NAA 1948 s21(1) excluded Mrs Y-Ahmed from consideration for asylum support. Regulation 6(4) of the Asylum Support Regulations 2000 required that when the Secretary of State determined for the purposes of Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 s95(1) whether a person was destitute, he must take into account ‘any other support’ available to that person. As an infirm and destitute asylum seeker, support was available to Mrs Y-Ahmed under section 21(1) of the NAA 1948. ‘Support’ in regulation 6(4) was not limited to support from private sources.

Comment: see the later decisions of Slough and SL (paras 21.69 and 21.73 below), where it was in dispute whether the applicant had a need for care and attention.