
Before heading to his beach hut, Ian Smith takes a whirlwind tour through cases dealing with time travel, judicial recusal & long term temps
- The Court of Appeal in Lutz v Ryanair DAC confirmed that long-term arrangements (eg five years) can still be considered ‘temporary’ under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010, reinforcing earlier case law and guidance on the term ‘permanent’.
- In Revenue and Customs Commissioners v Taylors Services Ltd, the Court of Appeal ruled that travel time from home to work via employer-provided transport does not count as ‘working time’ under the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015, unless specific exceptions apply.
- Recent decisions offer important clarification on handling time limit issues at preliminary hearings and judge recusal applications, reaffirming the established Porter v Magill test for bias and rejecting arguments for a lowered threshold.
Two Court of Appeal cases in the last month have addressed and hopefully resolved two well-known issues in employment law—namely the meaning of ‘permanent’ in the law on agency workers