IA268982014 & Ors.

These are appeals that were allowed at the First‑tier Tribunal. The appellant before the Upper Tribunal is the Secretary of State. For clarity and convenience, however, I will refer to the parties in this decision as they were at the First‑tier.

Permission to appeal was granted by First‑tier Tribunal Judge Davidge, on 8 January 2015. The grounds seeking permission to appeal referred to the Azimi‑Moayed and EV (Philippines) cases, and argued that the judge had taken a fundamentally flawed approach which had led to an inadequate balancing exercise. The grant of permission was as follows: �On the face of the short reasoning provided by the judge the grounds are at least arguable.�

Mr Seelhoff, for the appellants, provided a Rule 24 response dated 21 January 2015. This included an extract from the debate in the House of Lords about the clause that became section 117B(6) of the 2002 Act.

As I indicated at the hearing I have decided that no material error of law has been established.

The point was made by both representatives that the reasoning in the decision was brief. I accept the submission made by Mr Seelhoff, however, that the reasoning was not inadequate in view of the facts, and in view of the relatively uncontentious outcome. I accept the point that he made that the position of the oldest child, who had reached such an important stage of his education in the UK, led to the relatively uncontroversial finding that it would not be reasonable at this stage to expect him to leave the UK, without the need for extensive reasoning in support.