There has been growing pressure in recent years to make St David's Day a bank holiday in Wales.
A petition, on the UK Government website, has more than 10,000 signatures and there have been calls from many places for Wales' patron saint to be honored with a bank holiday. After all, with the union coming under increasing pressure and all the respective nations of the UK looking to assert their unique place within it, what could be better than letting people celebrate Dewi Sant in Wales?
Well despite the calls, the UK Government have so far refused to allowed March 1 to become a bank holiday. WalesOnline has taken a deep dive into the issue to try and make some sense of the debate.
Do Scotland, Northern Ireland and England have bank holidays on their saints days?
In 2006, the Scottish Parliament passed the St. Andrew’s Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007 which designated the day as an official bank holiday.
It has a different legal status to Bank Holidays created in the UK's 1971 Bank and Financial Dealings Act 1971 but the UK's Parliament website says the difference is academic and "in practice, they operate in largely the same way". There is no statutory right to a day off on any bank holiday but most workers do get one. Most schools are shut.
Scotland also has an extra Hogmanay Bank Holiday on January 2, which was granted in the 1971 Act to mark the significance of Hogmanay celebrations north of the border. Instead, Scotland only has one Bank Holiday at Easter with a day off on Good Friday but no official holiday on Easter Monday.
In Northern Ireland, St Patrick's Day is an official Bank Holiday on March 17. There is also an additional Bank Holiday on July 12 to mark the Battle of the Boyne/Orangemen's Day.
However in England St George's day is not a bank holiday.
Why won't the UK Government grant Wales a bank holiday on St David's Day?
Back in 2000, the then National Assembly for Wales voted unanimously in favour of a St David’s Day Bank Holiday but the UK Government still won't budge.
The rationale for their decision is that it will cost the economy money and have a negative impact on businesses.
In December 2021 UK Government minister Paul Scully wrot e: “While we appreciate that the people of Wales want to celebrate their patron saint, more people work across the English/Welsh border than across the English/Scottish Border.
“This closer degree of integration could cause greater business disruption. If we had separate bank holidays in England and Wales, the impact on both employees and businesses is difficult to predict.”
Would a bank holiday on St David's Day actually negatively effect the economy?
This is a really hard question to answer. On the one hand, it is obvious that most people not working will hit productivity. However on the other hand there is the argument that over a bank holiday weekend people spend more money in areas like hospitality. On top of this there are also the health benefits of working fewer hours. All together this makes it hard thing to quantify.
To try and get to the bottom of this WalesOnline spoke to some leading academics about the issue.
"It is very difficult to quantify the financial costs of bank holidays," said John Bryson, professor of enterprise and economic geography at the University of Birmingham. "One calculation made by the Centre of Economics and Business Research in 2012 suggested that every bank holiday in the UK resulted in costs of £2.3bn., but this analysis highlighted that measuring the impacts was very difficult.
"However, there is an important point to make here in that some economic sectors would suffer from the fall in output from a lost working day, but other sectors would benefit. Thus, sectors that would benefit would include leisure, hospitality and retail as well as any economic activity producing products and services that would contribute to this bank holiday. This any local impacts would reflect a place's economic structure.
"There are the intangible benefits that could come with financial benefits linked to enhancing the Welsh nations place-based identity. The issue is about how St David's Day as a bank holiday would be celebrated and which stakeholders would be encouraged to benefit.
"Some accounts suggest that a bank holiday could add value to an economy and that the range would be somewhere between a benefit for the UK economy, of a UK holiday, of over £1bn or a loss of £3.6bn. It depends on what costs and benefits are identified and included in the analysis. However, the decision to make St David's Day a bank holiday should not just be based on economics as Welsh identity is much more important than a discussion based on monetary value and economic impacts."
What is the evidence from other countries?
Dr Edward Thomas Jones, lecturer in economics at Bangor University told WalesOnline that evidence from other parts of the world provided a mixed picture. He said: "Many countries are looking at introducing new bank holidays as a way to boost their economies but the benefits from bank holidays isn’t black and white. Most countries in Europe have 12 annual bank holidays.
"Our nearest neighbour, Ireland, currently has nine but will introduce a new bank holiday in 2023 to celebrate St Brigid. Proposals for new bank holidays have stalled due to a dispute among policymakers and economists; do the benefits of bank holidays outweigh the costs? The evidence is mixed. In 2011, Italy introduced a one-off holiday to mark the country’s 150th anniversary of unification. This holiday was found to have a positive, albeit small, impact on the economy. Analysis done for Australia in 2015 suggests that the introduction of a new bank holiday would have an adverse impact on the economy.
"Central to the question of if bank holidays boost economics is whether the benefit of having increased consumers spending on or around the holiday outweighs the loss of productivity by letting employees off work. This central questions pits tourism, recreation, and retail industries against other traditional industries. More bank holidays make sense where tourism is a significant part of the economy."
This suggests that different parts of Wales could benefit more that others. "The local economies of Conwy and Pembrokeshire, where tourism is a major employer, would benefit more from an extra bank holiday than other parts of Wales," said Dr Jones. "There are other dividends too. Bank holidays enable people to take a day off work to enjoy their hobbies, take trips, or get together with family and friends. As a result, bank holidays have a positive impact on staff morale and workers are typically more productive the day after a bank holiday because they were rested and relaxed. Traditional employment industries would benefit from these dividends."
Dr Jones pointed to other studies which suggested that smaller retail saw higher profits during a bank holiday. A study in 2018 by Yell Business found that bank holidays gave UK small shops an average extra boost of £253 in profit. Other studies have found that bank holidays boost retail sales by 15% (albeit this is biased towards DIY, gardening, and furniture sales).
Research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that an extra bank holiday in 2020 could boost add £500m to the British economy through extra spending. While some businesses would welcome this extra boost, others have already lost substantial revenues during the pandemic and are badly placed financially to absorb another day when they have to pay staff for not working
Why is Wales being treat differently to Scotland?
If we take the rationale of Tory MP Paul Scully, it is a matter of geography. Wales' border with England is far longer and more integrated than Scotland's. It is argued that having people on one side of the border work when the others are not would be immensely disruptive to production lines etc.
But what do businesses say? Town Square Spaces is a small business support and coworking company headquartered in Caerphilly that operates coworking spaces across the UK with hubs and staff in London, North Wales, Oxfordshire, West Sussex and Devon.
COO of the company, Mandy Weston said that she actually sees this challenge as an opportunity. She told WalesOnline: “As a proud Wales-based company, we think it's about time St David's Day was a bank holiday and it’s an overdue idea.
“As the company has grown we have opened further hubs across the UK and so now a large portion of our staff are based in England, who wouldn’t benefit directly from the extra bank holiday. Also, a lot of our call handling and admin support is based at our Caerphilly headquarters, so we would need to remain open and staffed.
“However, this wouldn’t be as disruptive as it may seem as the way many of us work is already changing. Whether it's moving to a four-day work week, or working less hours across more days, organising staff into shifts gives them more freedom, and helps businesses stay agile and responsive to changes such as this.
“The hybrid-work model has been accelerated by the pandemic, but it’s interesting that the restrictions we faced have actually helped us adopt a more flexible way of working, which can keep businesses operational regardless of any holiday structure."
Professor Bryson agrees adding: "There are no logistical or business challenges to one part of the UK having a bank holiday that is different to other parts. Scotland, for example, already has a Bank holidays that is different to the UK. Thus, there is a precedent here. In Scotland there are also special holidays celebrated by different major towns and cities. Why should Wales be treated differently from Scotland?"
Unsurprisingly, hospitality businesses that WalesOnline spoke to were also in favour of a St David's Day bank holiday. John Bassett, landlord of the Four Elms pub in Roath in Cardiff said: "Bank holidays are great for our trade. If anything it’s extra hours for staff and an extra weekend day on the Sunday night. Added into that you can have a booming Monday lunchtime.
"Being a 'Welsh day' as well I think it could be very big thing for us & a great addition to our trading calendar."
A potential opportunity in a St David's Day bank holiday?
But are there benefits to businesses beyond merely more short term trade and happier staff. Some believe that devolping "brand Wales will help promote Welsh exports.
Ben Cottam head of Wales' Federation of Small Businesses said: "There is a benefit in capitalising on the brand on St David's Day. not just in tourism but in other areas such as eporting food and drink for instance."
Professor Bryson added to this sentiment saying: "Nationhood is about the stories that are told by a people and of that people. Thus, there is a close relationship between the construction of national identity and a sense of belonging. Thus, Welsh identity is about place, people, and culture and this includes language, music and all the traditions and related narratives that lie at the core of Welsh identity. It is important that this type of place-based identify is cherished and appreciated and understood by people living in other places.
"I have the great benefit of being Irish and Irish identity has much in common with Welsh identity, but part of Irish identity is constructed around St Patrick's Day and this day is celebrated in Ireland and internationally by all who have some affinity with Ireland. I have also lived in Wales, in Aberystwyth, and have very fond memories of the ways in which St David's Day was celebrated locally. For one day Aberystwyth became perhaps even more Welsh as it was very apparent that it was St David's Day."
Despite some support St David's Day becoming a bank holiday, Wales FSB head Ben Cottam believe there needs to be more research and the debate should be led by the head and not emotion. "Any day that represents a disruption in trading is a challenge for small business. The economic balance of questions in the debate hasn't been fully explored. Debates are often led more by emotion but I believe there is a the case of looking further at what it might mean for the economy."
