Can holiday pay claims be brought under the ERA?
The main issue decided by the House of Lords is the procedural question of whether claims for unpaid holiday pay can be brought under the ERA. Regulation 30 of the WTR provides that holiday pay claims must be brought within three months of the initial breach of the WTR, ie the first failure to pay holiday pay. The unlawful deductions provisions of the ERA, however, allow such claims to be brought within three months of the last in a series of deductions, significantly increasing the time limit for bringing the claim and the period over which the claim can be brought. The tribunal in Stringer allowed the original claim to proceed on this basis and went on to find that a worker was entitled to a payment in lieu of annual leave even though he was off sick at the time his employment terminated. This decision was approved on appeal by the EAT but then overturned by the Court of Appeal, which held that the WTR were plainly intended to provide a single and exclusive regime for the enforcement
