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The National Minimum Wage regulations came into force on 1 October and raised the rate of the national minimum wage from £3.60 to £3.70 per hour.
The regulations also introduce a number of other changes:
workers on National Traineeships and their equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland are now treated as having contracts of apprenticeship for the purpose of the national minimum wage;
post-graduate students who do work experience for up to one year as a requirement of their course will not have to be paid the national minimum wage for that work, provided that the course is at a UK higher education institution;
time when a worker is permitted to sleep can only be excluded from the calculation of the national minimum wage if the worker is provided with suitable facilities for sleeeping.
The regulations also introduce technical amendments relating to travel time between assignments, being "on call" at home and the submission of time sheets.
Meanwhile an Employment tribunal has ruled on the definition of a "rest break" under the National Minimum Wage regulations. In Smith v G and M Thomas, a tribunal had to consider whether a nightcarer's breaks during an 11 hour shift counted for the national minimum wage. Regulation 15(7) provides that the period of a "rest break" does not count towards time worked. Could the Applicant count the full 11 hours towards her time worked? Although the tribunal refused to believe that she never "nodded off" during her shift, there was no proper provision for her to have a rest break during her shift.
The tribunal saw no problem in transporting the definition of a "rest break" contained in the Working Time Regulations into the National Minimun Wage Regulations as a minimum standard. The rest break must have a clear start and end point, be uninterrupted and be for at least twenty minutes. Applying the reverse burden of proof built into the national minimum wage regulations, the respondents were unable to convince the Tribunal that Ms Smith enjoyed the benefit of rest breaks. The entire 11 hours therefore counted towards her time worked and she was not being paid the national minimum wage.