Bereaved parents launch court challenge over UK benefit ‘discrimination’ Widowed parent’s allowance claims for those not married or in civil partnership can only be backdated from 30 August 2018.
Changes in the law since then allowed them to make backdated claims, but only from 30 August 2018, which lawyers from Leigh Day said meant they had lost out on thousands of pounds.
The change in 2023 allowed her to claim some backdated payments but excluded the period between October 2016 and August 2018, which Leigh Day said had cost the family £16,000.
Byles lost his partner in 2017 after a cancer diagnosis 10 years earlier and was also unable to claim for the full period, with his family missing out on £14,000 as a result, the law firm said.
Jyotee Gunnooa and Andrew Byles lost their partners but were unable to claim a benefit for widowed parents because they were not married or in civil partnerships when the deaths happened.
