4 more bank holidays!

[Jeffrey Shaw]

What are the actual rules around bank holidays?

 

Are employers forced to give workers these holidays, of pay double time? Because many do work on bank holidays.

 

Employers and employees have no legal right to take bank holidays on those days already. The minimum annual leave amount includes bank holidays as a part of the standard entitlement. It's only 'tradition' that keeps them as they are.

Here's what HMG says at https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights:

 

Limits on statutory leave

 

Statutory paid holiday entitlement is limited to 28 days. Staff working 6 days a week are only entitled to 28 days’ paid holiday and not 33.6 days (5.6 multiplied by 6).

 

Bank holidays

 

Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave.

An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave.

 

Extra leave

 

An employer can choose to offer more leave than the legal minimum. They don’t have to apply all the rules that apply to statutory leave to the extra leave. For example, a worker might need to be employed for a certain amount of time before they become entitled to it.