Shops Act 1950

Section 19.

THIRD SCHEDULE Intervals for Meals

PART I

Intervals for meals shall be arranged so as to secure that no person shall be employed for more than six hours without an interval of at least twenty minutes being allowed during the course thereof.

Without prejudice to the foregoing provision—

(1) where the hours of employment include the hours from 11.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m., an interval of not less than three-quarters of an hour shall be allowed between those hours for dinner; and

(2) where the hours of employment include the hours from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., an interval of not less than half-an-hour shall be allowed between those hours for tea,

and the interval for dinner shall be increased to one hour in cases where that meal is not taken in the shop, or in a building of which the shop forms part or to which the shop is attached:

Provided that an assistant employed in the sale of refreshments or in the sale by retail of intoxicating liquors need not be allowed the interval for dinner between 11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. if he is allowed the same interval so arranged as either to end not earlier than 11.30 a.m. or to commence not later than 2.30 p.m., and the same exemption shall apply to assistants employed in any shop on the market day in any town in which a market is held not oftener than once a week, or on a day on which an annual fair is held.

PART II

Part I of this Schedule shall, in its application to young persons to whom subsection (1) of section twenty of this Act applies, have effect as if for the words " six hours " there were substituted the words " five hours or, on the day of the week on which he is not to be employed after half-past one o'clock, five and a half hours "