France is getting something right: let's scrap some Bank Holidays

Telegraph

7 days ago

If Rachel Reeves seriously wants to grow the British economy and tackle record levels of public debt, maybe she should be looking across the Channel for ideas.
Francois Bayrou, the Prime Minister appointed by President Macron with the unenviable task of sorting out the French fiscal crisis, has proposed cancelling two Bank Holidays, in a bid to improve national productivity.
To no-one's surprise, the idea has been met with indignation by both the populist Right and Left-wing opposition parties, who are generally united in their refusal to countenance any dilution of workers' rights or benefits. But surely M Bayrou has a point: are public holidays really necessary, when productivity is persistently low and public debt is at an all-time high?
In fact the loss of two national holidays would still leave the French population with nine days of religious or secular commemoration. That would bring them in line with Scotland, which has nine Bank Holidays, one more than in England, which currently has eight.
But perhaps it's time for the UK to reconsider all these national holidays. Our debt level is dangerously close to 100 per cent of GDP (in France it's 110 per cent) and we too have a serious productivity problem and every reason to worry about the sustainability of our public finances.
Curtailing regular interruptions to the working week could be a useful boost to the economy; in any case, hasn't the original purpose of such holidays long since disappeared?
As a Victorian invention, the Bank Holiday dates from an era when the working week included Saturdays and annual paid leave was minimal or non-existent. These mandatory days off have proliferated over the years as governments have courted popularity; when new ones are introduced no one has the courage to suggest an old one might be abolished.
The Spring Bank Holiday at the end of May, once known as Whit Monday, was first introduced in the 1870s to mark the day after Pentecost, a key date in the Christian calendar, but has had no religious significance since it became detached from Whitsun in the 1970s. Nowadays it follows hard upon the May Day holiday, which has nothing to do with maypole dancing but was purely an invention of a weak Labour government flaunting its solidarity with the workers in 1978.
This in turn is preceded by Easter Monday, so that when Easter falls late there can be three extended weekends in less than two months.
Of course in a Christian country Christmas Day should be a day of celebration, and there's a case for Boxing Day and indeed Easter Monday, if only to give the clergy a breather, but it's questionable whether New Year's Day is anything other than an excuse for a hangover or a reason to stop work altogether for ten days starting on Christmas Eve.
As for August Bank Holiday: why head for the beach or a local beauty spot when everyone else is doing the same?
So Rachel, here's your chance to echo the Prime Minister's entente cordiale and support President Macron's beleaguered government in this bold new initiative by announcing that the UK will in fact be cutting out at least three of our superfluous Bank Holidays next year and thereafter.
It will certainly play well with the OBR, and might even impress the bond markets. Why not give it a try?