Bank Holidays

Louise Walker
Legal Director
View Profile

Jeremy Corbyn has this week announced that a Labour Government would seek to create four new UK-wide bank holidays, St David’s Day (1 March), St Patrick’s Day (17 March), St George’s Day (23 April) and St Andrew’s Day (30 November).

But what impact would the creation of four new public holidays have for employers and employees in practice?

The answer is that this will likely make little difference to the majority of the UK’s workforce. It may be wrongly assumed that if the Government declares an additional public holiday that all employees will automatically be entitled to receive an additional paid day off work. In reality though, whether or not an employee will be entitled to take any additional bank holidays as a result of such a move would be dependent upon the wording of their contract of employment.

If you have any questions about how this proposal may impact your staff or the contract format that you currently use, please do not hesitate to contact the team on 0141 331 5150.

Topics: Court Of Appeal