Rest breaks



Workers are entitled to a rest break where they work more than six hours in a day (Regulation 12). This must be an uninterrupted period of at least 20 minutes away from any workstation. The EAT held that there is no statutory right to a second 20-minute break after 12 hours’ work (The Corps of Commissionaires Management v Hughes UKEAT/0196/08/CEA). The break must be taken during, rather than at the start or end of, the working time.



Young workers are entitled to a rest break of at least 30 minutes, which should be consecutive if possible, where the daily working time is more than four-and-a-half hours.



Where the pattern of work is such as to put the health and safety of workers at risk, particularly if the work is monotonous or the work rate is predetermined, the employer must ensure that workers get adequate rest breaks (Regulation 8). In these circumstances, employers should give more regular breaks than the minimum required by law. There are additional rules about rest breaks for display screen (VDU) users (see Chapter 7, Work equipment).



Grange v Abellio London Limited [2016] UKEAT/0130/16/1611 confirms that there is no need to ask for permission to take a rest break in order to bring a tribunal claim under regulation 30 of the WTR where an employer fails to provide breaks. The decision reverses earlier controversial EAT rulings including Miles v Linkage Community Trust [2008] IRLR 602
and Carter v Prestige Nursing Limited [2014] UKEAT/0014/12/ZT.



There is no right to compensation for injury to feelings if an employer fails to provide a rest break (Gomez v Higher Level Care Limited [2016] UKEAT/0017/16/RN).


The regulations on daily and weekly rest periods do not apply to shift workers when they change shifts and cannot take the rest periods between the end of one shift and the start of the next one. Similarly, they do not apply to workers whose work is split up over the day, such as cleaners. But in both cases, they are entitled to compensatory rest.