THE GOVERNMENT unlawfully discriminated against two severely disabled men who had been moved onto Universal Credit (UC), the High Court ruled yesterday.

In the first legal test of the roll out of UC, Mr Justice Lewis ruled that Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey had unlawfully discriminated against the men, who lived alone without a carer and saw their benefits cut by around £178 a month.

TP, a terminally ill 52-year-old, had his payments cut under UC while undergoing “gruelling chemotherapy” because he briefly moved from London to live with his parents in Dorset.