The Supreme Court recently ruled in Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Appellant) v Haywood (Respondent) [2018] UKSC 22…

As an employment lawyer and someone who believes in equality I would say that this should of course be the case however the reality is different. This is something which was recently head at an Employment Appeal Tribunal. It was the case of Capita Customer Management v Ali which was an appeal against a previous decision that it was sex discrimination to allow a man not to see his pay enhanced during shared parental leave in the same way as a woman was able to receive enhanced maternity pay.

What employers do and don’t know at a particular point in time is often up for discussion in employment cases. Sometimes employers may take the view that it is best not to ask questions in case they are then saddled with an answer that they did not want to hear.

The recent Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in the pregnancy discrimination case of Really Easy Car Credit Limited v Thompson is one such case where what the employer knew, and when, and what part this played in the decision to dismiss the employee were key.

The ruling in the case of King v The Sash Window Workshop Ltd and anor will have significant implications for the right to holiday pay in the UK. It opens the door for up to 80 weeks’ backdated pay, with claims potentially extending as far as 1996 when the Tinme Directive came into force.

The Ministry of Justice and the Department of Business, Energy, Innovation and Skills are in the process of reforming the Employment Tribunal system as part of modernisation work. They have indicated that there are no plans to consider radical structural change so, presumably, it is not looking at converging the employment tribunal and EAT and the courts at this point, as has previously been mooted.