Travelling from home to assignment does not constitute 'time work' for workers

What were the facts of the case?

In the case of Taylors Service Ltd (dissolved) and another v The Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs [2024], workers were engaged on zero hour contracts in the poultry industry by TSL and TPL in order to carry out work such as providing injections, grading, loading and unloading poultry.

The workers were picked up from their homes in a minibus and transported to their assignments. Their journeys could be very long, reaching eight hours per day on top of the working day. The workers occasionally had to be collected in the middle of the night in order to reach their assignment. The workers were paid £2.50 per hour for this travel time.

In 2020, HMRC issued Notices of Underpayment and informed TSL and TPL that the workers should be paid the national minimum wage for this travel time. TSL and TPL disputed this notice and made a claim to the Employment Tribunal.

The Tribunal dismissed the claim and held that the worker's time spent travelling from home to their assignment was 'time work' under the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.

EAT decision

TSL and TPL appealed to the EAT. The EAT overturned the Tribunal's decision and allowed the appeal against the Notices of Underpayment. The time the workers spent travelling to their first assignment of the day, was not 'time work' for National Minimum Wage purposes. Time work includes hourly paid work and work that is paid according to the level of output. Travel time can be treated as time work where the worker is travelling for the purposes of time work, and at a time when they would otherwise be working. Travel from home to the workplace is not covered.

The EAT confirmed that unless there is work to be done whilst travelling, or the workers are travelling from assignment to assignment as opposed to from or to their home, the time is not time work, and there is no entitlement to be paid for this time at the National Minimum Wage. The mere fact that the travel is for the purpose of carrying out work, or is travel the worker has to undertake, or is travel that the employer controls, does not turn travel into work. It was also beside the point that the workers' commute was unusually long. Whilst the case may have produced a seemingly unfair result, the EAT explained that this can only be remedied through legislation.

Learning points for employers

Employers should carefully consider whether travel time attracts National Minimum Wage. Whilst the workers in this case were not so entitled, this was because they were picked up from home. Had they instead been transported between work assignments, the travel time would have been treated differently and would have attracted National Minimum Wage.

For more information or advice, please contact Michael Halsey in our Employment team on 020 7665 0842, or complete the form.