Wages Act: Tribunal must decide contractual entitlement

Where employees argue that they have not received the full pay to which they are entitled and that this amounts to an unlawful deduction under the Wages Act, the industrial tribunal must first determine any dispute about what wages are properly payable under the contract, the EAT confirms in Yemm and others v British Steel plc. Moreover, an employer's possible error about what is allowed under the contract is not an "error of computation" taking any resulting deduction outside the Act's provisions.