The Queen v Secretary of State for Social Security, ex parte John Henry Taylor.
Date: 1999-12-16
14 As the Court has already held, in order to fall within the scope of the Directive, a benefit must constitute the whole or part of a statutory scheme providing protection against one of the risks listed in Article 3(1) of the Directive, or a form of social assistance having the same objective, and be directly and effectively linked to protection against one of those risks (see the judgments in Case C-243/90 Smithson [1992] ECR I-467, paragraphs 12 and 14; Joined Cases C-63/91 and C-64/91 Jackson and Cresswell [1992] ECR I-4737, paragraphs 15 and 16; and Case C-137/94 R v Secretary of State for Health, ex parte Richardson [1995] ECR I-3407, paragraphs 8 and 9).
16 It is therefore necessary to examine whether the benefit at issue in the main proceedings is directly and effectively linked to protection against any of the risks listed in Article 3(1) of the Directive (see Richardson, paragraph 9).
23 It is clear from Regulation 2(5) and (6) that the benefit may be granted to elderly persons, even if they do not have financial or material difficulties. It follows that, contrary to what is claimed by the United Kingdom Government, protection against a lack of financial means cannot be considered to be the aim of the Regulations. On the other hand, the benefit can be granted only to persons who have reached the minimum age of 60 for women and 65 for men. That is a condition for the grant of the benefit, applicable to all those referred to in the provision concerned.
24 The fact is that the benefit at issue in the main proceedings is aimed only at persons who have reached the statutory age of retirement and, consequently, is aimed at protecting them against the risk of old age mentioned in Article 3(1) of the Directive. That finding is not affected by the fact that the applicant for the benefit must also be in receipt of one of the benefits listed in Regulation 2(6). Those benefits are varied in nature and only some of them are intended to protect against a lack of pecuniary means.
25 In so far as the grant of the winter fuel payment to any of the categories of persons referred to is always subject to the materialisation of the risk of old age, that payment must be deemed to protect directly and effectively against that risk.
28 In accordance with the settled case-law of the Court, the application of different ages, according to sex, to a benefit scheme other than the old-age and retirement pension scheme can be justified only if the discrimination to which the difference in age gives rise is objectively necessary in order to avoid disrupting the financial equilibrium of the social security system or to ensure consistency between the retirement pension scheme and the other benefit scheme (see Case C-328/91 Secretary of State for Social Security v Thomas and Others [1993] ECR I-1247, paragraph 12).
29 As regards, first of all, the condition concerning preservation of the financial equilibrium of the social security system, it should be borne in mind that the Court has already held that the grant of benefits under non-contributory schemes to persons in respect of whom certain risks have materialised, regardless of the entitlement of such persons to an old-age pension by virtue of contribution periods completed by them, has no direct influence on the financial equilibrium of contributory pension schemes (see Thomas and Others, paragraph 14).