Employment

It was necessary for the employment tribunal to ask, in the context of applying reg 24 of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833) whether there were objective reasons why the working arrangements could not be arranged so as to secure a full break.

Therefore, objective reasons were required to justify a failure to provide the employee with his full rest break. That applied equally to rest periods under reg 10 so that objective reasons for not giving rest periods under reg 10 and rest breaks under reg 12 had to be separately considered. That would be in accordance with what was the correct interpretation of Art 17 of Council Directive (EC) 2003/88.