Is this legal?

[ALittleBitOfMagic]

I'm wondering if DHs working hours are legal ? He works on a salary contracted for 45 hours per week ( I think his contract says minimum ) anything he does above this he doesn't get paid for, unless he works over 55 hours , then he starts getting paid minimum wage .

So last week he worked 62 hours . He will get paid his normal salary plus 7 hours at whatever minimum wage is .

Is this legal ?

Do you mean not legal as in not being paid the overtime (not necessarily illegal) or too many hours (possibly dependent on average over period of time)?

Both . Surely he can't be made to work more than 48 hours . And surely if he's going to be paid the same whether he works 45 or 55 hours per week that doesn't make sense . Why would people work for free ?

he can opt out of the Working Time Directive to work more than 48 hours. here But its the average hours worked, not one off weeks.

Does his contract say he wont be paid for the additional hours worked up to 55? If so, he can only ask for the contract to be amended.

We don't pay any overtime, nor do a lot of other businesses - it depends on the company and what they do for everyone else., it isn't necessarily illegal, just part of being a salaried employee.
eg my contract says that I must do a minimum of 37.5 hrs/week - generally I work 45, sometimes up to 55 depending on workload. The argument is that our salaries take this into account, and it's all part of doing the job that I am employed to do - if I worked just 37.5 hrs/week I wouldn't earn the salary that I do because I wouldn't be able to do all of my job. It's not illegal.
In terms of the 48hr week, there is the opt-out as Squirted says, but that is an average of over 48 hrs/week over a period of 8 weeks (I think).

DH doesn;t get paid any overtime until it is 4 consecutive hours.
So 2 hours one evening, then 3.5 hours on a Saturday morning doesn't count. But for four and a quarter hours in one stint he would get paid for four and a quarter hours.
If he has signed a contract for the hours you describe, then he has opted out of the Working Time Directive.