In short
Rubbish Talk rates the BBC's claim that "Next wins key appeal to overturn £30m equal pay ruling" a 3/10 because the Employment Appeal Tribunal did overturn the basic-pay finding behind that £30m estimate, but upheld the night-time, overtime and rest-break elements the headline doesn't mention.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The headline is broadly accurate, the EAT genuinely overturned the part of the 2024 ruling driving the bulk of the £30m estimate, but pinning the whole figure to a single "won" appeal glosses over the fact that three other pay elements survived the challenge and the claimant pool has roughly doubled since that £30m number was first calculated.
What actually happened
An Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that Next's original 2024 defeat, which found it wrong to pay warehouse staff more basic pay than shop floor staff for equal-value work, contained a legal error. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has overturned a key part of a landmark ruling in 2024 which found the retailer was wrong to pay its warehouse staff higher basic pay than shop floor workers for jobs of equal value. Next was justified in paying higher rates because of recruitment and retention pressures for warehouse workers. But Leigh Day said judges did uphold 2024 findings on night-time premiums, overtime premiums and paid rest breaks.
Key facts
- More than 3,500 current and former employees, mainly women, had been set to share potentially more than £30m in back pay as a result of the 2024 judgement.
- Since that ruling, the claimant pool has grown well beyond the original 3,500: one outlet reports the total litigation now involves over 6,000 claimants, another puts it at more than 6,400.
- The tribunal's reasoning: the original tribunal "erred in finding that the employer did not pursue a legitimate aim when setting different rates of pay", because the aim of paying higher rates to warehouse staff "included recruitment and retention factors which did not apply to the claimant group".
- Both tribunals still found no direct sex discrimination in Next's pay rates, despite shop floor staff being predominantly women and warehouse staff predominantly male, per the original article.
- The basic pay gap at issue ran from 38p to £3.13 per hour across the 2012 to 2023 claim period.
What to watch for
Leigh Day says it will appeal the basic-pay reversal, so this is not final; watch for that permission-to-appeal decision. Also watch how much of the £30m figure survives once the still-upheld night, overtime and rest-break claims are valued against the now much larger 6,000-plus claimant pool, and whether Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's, all facing similar claims, cite this ruling in their own defences.
