Mr B Harvey v TOP 100 Ltd - Westdrive — 2024

Mr B Harvey brought a claim for unlawful deduction from wages arising from a deduction of £384.06 made from his March 2024 final pay. The deduction was described on his payslip as 'Deduction-in-lieu of holiday (end of contract)'. The respondent's case was that the sum related to holiday taken in excess of holiday accrued when he left employment.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant's annual holiday entitlement was 22 days plus bank holidays, with a leave year running from 1 January to 31 December. It found that the claimant had taken 3.5 days of holiday in February 2024 for which he had not yet accrued entitlement because he resigned part way through the leave year, and that he was therefore overpaid in respect of those days. The tribunal also accepted that the principal terms and conditions document referred to the company handbook as forming an integral part of the contract, and that the claimant had been provided with a copy of the handbook on 29 January 2024 before the deduction was made.

On that basis, the tribunal held that the handbook contained a written term authorising deduction of holiday pay from final wages where an employee had taken more holiday than accrued at the date of leaving. It found that this was a relevant contractual provision for the purposes of section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, so the deduction was not an unauthorised deduction. In the alternative, it held that the deduction fell within section 14 as an overpayment of wages.

The tribunal also rejected the claimant's National Minimum Wage argument. It held that the deduction fell within regulation 12(2) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015, either as a deduction relating to the event of his resignation where he was contractually liable, or alternatively as repayment of an advance of wages. It also said the contractual provision amounted to a 'relevant agreement' for regulation 14(4) of the Working Time Regulations 1998. The complaint was therefore not well-founded and was dismissed.