4 more bank holidays ‘to cost economy £9bn a year’
PLANS by Jeremy Corbyn to create four extra bank holidays and impose a cap on bosses’ pay would harm firms, business leaders warned yesterday.
the Labour leader’s populist bid to win votes could cost the economy more than £9billion a year, expert analysis suggests.
the new holidays would fall on each home nation’s patron saint day – St David’s Day on March 1, St Patrick’s Day on March 17, St George’s Day on April 23 and St Andrew’s Day on november 30. the Labour manifesto commitment would mean workers across the UK would enjoy seven Bank holidays between March and May, if approved by the devolved administrations.
Mr Corbyn claimed this would help unite the four home nations and celebrate their cultures while allowing workers to spend more time with their families. normally england and Wales have eight bank holidays a year, Scotland has nine and northern Ireland ten. Labour says the average for G20 countries is 12, while Japan has 16.
But the pledge to create four more was described as ‘crazy’ by tory chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin, while a tory source said: ‘the British economy would be on a permanent holiday if Mr Corbyn got near Downing Street.’
the Institute of Directors ( IoD) warned small firms would be hardest hit by the proposals, and tory MP John redwood said closing factories for four more days a year would damage the country’s exports drive after Brexit.
John Longworth, the former boss of the British Chambers of Commerce, added: ‘this is typical political grandstanding without any concern to the costs and the effect it will have on the economy. Any fool can give stuff away if it doesn’t belong to him.’
Mr Corbyn’s plans also alarmed education groups, with Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for real education, warning they would be disruptive for schoolchildren who already enjoy 13 weeks holiday a year. each Bank holiday costs the economy £2.3billion, the Centre for economics and Business research think-tank estimated in 2012. But Mr Corbyn told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show the Bank of england had concluded the economic impact is ‘roughly neutral’ because although production is lost by the shutdown of many workplaces there is more spending in shops and restaurants.
Mr Corbyn’s advisers admitted his comments were based on one comment by a member of the Bank of england’s Monetary Policy Committee in 2012.
the Labour leader also outlined a commitment to impose drastic curbs on pay at private sector companies which compete for public sector contracts. Bosses would not be able to earn more than 20 times the salary of the lowest paid worker. this would equate to a maximum pay package including bonuses of £330,000 at any firm employing staff on the living wage.
Mr Corbyn stressed that getting pay down to this level was a ‘longer term objective’. But business groups pointed out this would effectively bar the Government from dealing with any major company in Britain, with FTSE 100 chief executives receiving an average annual package of around £5.5million.
Mr Longworth said it was not the right way to curb unwarranted pay, and showed Mr Corbyn to be ‘naive and economically illiterate’.
‘Political grandstanding’