Weekly Issue 634

More pay and increased holiday

The New Economics Foundation has produced a report arguing that increased holidays and wages for the lowest paid can increase demand and productivity (...).

Progressive disability

The Equality Act states that it is direct discrimination to treat someone less favourably than someone else because of a protected characteristic, such as disability. In Chief Constable of Norfolk v Coffey, the Court of Appeal held it is still direct discrimination to treat people with progressive conditions less favourably because they are perceived to have a disability (...).

Series of deductions

The Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland has held, in Chief Constable of the PSNI and anor v Agnew and ors, that contrary to the decision in Bear Scotland v Fulton a series of deductions regarding holiday pay is not broken by a gap of three months or more where there is a "sufficient similarity of subject matter, such that each event is factually linked with the next...in the alleged series [of deductions]...”.