Business leaders have written to the prime minister and chancellor to back plans for a new bank holiday.
The Thank Holiday campaign, which includes the CBI and UK Hospitality, and companies such as Siemens , is calling for this year’s Platinum Jubilee bank holiday in June to be made permanent after research suggested that government figures overestimate the economic cost of public holidays.
The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is also said to be in favour of keeping the new bank holiday.
This would bring the total bank holidays in England and Wales to nine, still lower than many places in Europe, including France, which has 11.
Research by PwC, commissioned by the Together Coalition for the campaign, found that official figures overestimated the cost of a new bank holiday by 64% and failed to account for social and health benefits.
The Culture Department and the Business Department developed a modelling framework for analysing the potential impact of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee bank holiday, based on comparing GDP growth forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility with the growth levels realised with the Golden Jubilee bank holiday.
The PwC report used the same framework but factored in the differences in hourly productivity across the working week.
The analysis also factored in that fewer people work on Mondays and Fridays compared with midweek, and those who do work on those days tend to work fewer hours.
