For most of us in the UK this weekend will be a blissfully long one. It’s time for that national ritual – the bank holiday. And despite the crowds and traffic jams, it’s one that many of us enjoy. The sun shines, sometimes, and Britons generally seem to feel that bit happier – which is good news as this year we’re getting an extra one, a bonus bank holiday in June to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Calls have been growing to make this new day off permanent. An influential coalition including the Confederation of British Industry, Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Archbishop of Canterbury is campaigning for a “Thank Holiday” – a new annual Bank Holiday from 2023 to recognise both the Queen’s “extraordinary service” and “the service and kindness of millions in our communities, especially during the pandemic”.
And, as business leaders set out their case in an open letter to the Prime Minister this week, the mood music was positive. Reports said Chancellor Rishi Sunak was “supportive” of the idea, as were, it was reported, Boris Johnson and his wife. But then, on Tuesday – the day the letter was sent – reality came crashing in as the PM’s official spokesman said a new bank holiday would mean an annual £2bn hit to the UK economy. “I’m not aware of any plans to make it permanent,” he added.
But research by the professional services network PwC commissioned for the Thank Holiday campaign suggests the government has overestimated the potential cost. It takes into account an estimated £366m increase in demand from a bank holiday and calculates the net cost to the economy of an extra one to be £831m. And, the analysis says, the cost would come down further to a mere £736m if the bank holiday was on a Friday, as less hours are worked at the end of the week anyway. That sum may still be significant, but business leaders seem prepared to take the hit.
“We are convinced that the benefits of a new holiday would outweigh the costs, as well as serving as a demonstration of our national values and compassion,” their letter to the PM said. The PwC report also finds “strong suggestive evidence that the relatively small potential macroeconomic cost” could be “partially or wholly offset” by the “wellbeing” boost a nation’s economy can get from an extra holiday.
A London School of Economics report from 2016 supports the idea of a boost to national wellbeing or happiness; with more than 90 per cent of a panel of academics arguing this would rise if the number of public holidays were increased.
There certainly seems to be scope for that in the UK which currently has just a quarter of the 32 public holidays in Myanmar. It wasn’t always this way. There were 33 public holidays in the UK – saint’s days and religious festivals – until 1834 when they were cut to four.
Numbers have crept up since. However, the last permanent addition came way back in 1978, with the final Monday of May in Scotland and the first Monday in May for the rest of the UK. More recent pushes for an increase – in 2018 Labour called for UK-wide public holidays on 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) – have come to naught.
So does the latest one have a chance of faring any better, after its apparent setback this week? Afzal Rahman is a spokesperson for the TUC – part of the Thank Holiday coalition and argues the goal is realistic. “We should get at least as many holidays as our European counterparts,” he said, noting that while the UK has just eight, they have 12. “It works practically in most other countries. And, you know, it’s not just workers calling for this, it’s business leaders and employer representatives who have led on these on these calls over the last few days.”
Rahman argues that people spend their money in hospitality and entertainment during a bank holiday, sectors that took a particularly hard pandemic hit.
But what about the loss in productivity that some fear? Douglas McWilliams an economist from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said in May 2020 that this loss would probably be “rather less than it might have been a few years ago as working from home and working flexibly have become a reality”.