Additional bank holiday for 2022

Date: Thursday 05 August 2021

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Lawgistics have recently issued a reminder about the extra public holiday on 3rd June 2022 which will result in a four-day bank holiday weekend to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The Spring Bank Holiday, usually the last Monday in May, will be moved to Thursday, 2nd June 2022.

So, how does this affect you and your employees?
As a reminder, there is no statutory right for employees to take bank holidays off work. Any right to time off will be subject to the employee’s contract. Therefore, if an employee works a bank holiday, there is no statutory right to extra pay. For example, an employer is not under an obligation to pay time and a half, unless stated within the contract.

If the employee’s contract specifies the employee is required to work on bank holidays, then the employee cannot refuse to work – even for religious reasons. However, employers should be aware that a refusal to grant an employee of Christian faith time off for any of the bank holidays with religious significance could amount to indirect discrimination if it places them at a particular disadvantage when compared to other employees of differing faiths or are nonreligious.

If the contracts of employment are worded to state that employees are entitled to “statutory entitlement plus bank holidays”, this no longer denotes 20 days’ leave plus eight bank holidays, and therefore the employee would be entitled to the additional bank holiday.

This could be an issue for employers with a holiday year that runs from April to March and the timing of Easter weekend is such that the employee could receive as many as 10 bank holidays in one holiday year or as few as six bank holidays the next year.

It should also be remembered, a part-time worker has the right to not be treated less favourably compared to a full-time worker and this includes bank holiday entitlement.

The best practice and safest approach to part-time employees is to give them a pro-rata allowance of paid bank holidays, irrespective of whether or not they normally work on the days on which the bank holidays fall.

To summarise, below are the dates for the public holidays for 2022:

3 January	Monday	New Year's Day (substitute day)
3 January	Tuesday	Scotland only
17 March	Thursday	Northern Ireland only
15 April	Friday	Good Friday
18 April	Monday	Easter Monday (except Scotland)
2 May	Monday	Early May Bank Holiday
2 June	Thursday	Spring Bank Holiday
3 June	Friday	Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday
12 July	Tuesday	Northern Ireland only
1 August	Monday	Scotland only
29 August	Monday	Summer Bank Holiday (except Scotland)
30 November	Wednesday	Scotland only
26 December	Monday	Boxing Day
27 December	Tuesday	Christmas Day (substitute day)

 

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