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News & Knowledge » What are your rights regarding the Queen’s funeral Bank Holiday on 19th September 2022?
It has been announced that Monday 19th September 2022, the date of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s State Funeral, will be a national bank holiday.
This will allow individuals, businesses and other organisations to pay their respects to Her Majesty and commemorate her reign, while marking the final day of the period of national mourning.
We have received a huge number of enquiries requesting further information on entitlement to the bank holiday from both employees and employers alike.
It will operate in the same way as other bank holidays and there is no statutory entitlement to have time off.
A lot of business will automatically close and employees will get the day off. This will include schools and other associated businesses. Many businesses will also therefore be forced to recognise childcare issues that will be faced by their employees.
If your employer insists that they will stay open for business and will not be granting staff members a bank holiday, there is unfortunately very little that an employee can do. Ultimately, whether an employee will get the day off will be at the discretion of the employer and the government cannot interfere in existing contractual arrangements between employers and workers.
Entitlement to the bank holiday will depend entirely on the wording of the employees’ contract of employment. For example:
| Wording of contract |
Entitled to the additional bank holiday? |
Reasoning |
| X days holiday per annum plus the usual bank/public holidays observed in England and Wales |
No |
The key word here is “usual”. The additional bank holiday is not usually observed in England and Wales and therefore there is no entitlement to take paid time off for the Queen’s funeral bank holiday. |
| X days paid holiday plus bank holidays |
Yes |
Employees have a contractual entitlement to take paid time off on the Queen’s funeral bank holiday as the contractual entitlement is not limited to the usual bank holidays in England and Wales.
In this instance, an employee is therefore entitled to paid time off on all bank holidays, including any additional ones. |
| X days holiday inclusive of bank holidays |
No |
As the public and/or bank holidays are included within the employee’s set holiday entitlement and, because there is no specification regarding the exact number of bank holidays only that they form part of an employee’s entitlement, there would not be a contractual right to the extra bank holiday. |
| X days holiday per annum plus 8 bank/public holidays observed in England and Wales |
Yes* |
Due to the timing in the year of the Queens’ funeral bank holiday, while there is an entitlement for an employee to take paid time off for this day, they are only entitled to 8 bank holidays a year. Therefore, *it is important to note, if the employee chose to take paid time off for the Queens’ funeral bank holiday they would then lose entitlement to a later bank holiday in the year. |
Regardless of the above, many employers will choose to grant employees the additional bank holiday as paid time off as a gesture of goodwill; this is extremely similar to the situation regarding the additional bank holiday granted for the Platinum Jubilee earlier this year.
We have also been asked whether there will be a bank holiday for the Coronation. No decision has yet been made and the government stated that a decision will be made on this nearer the time.
The government provided further guidance on the bank holiday for Her Majesty Queen Elizbeth II’s State Funeral which can be found at the following link: Bank holiday announced for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s State Funeral on Monday 19 September – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
It has been announced that Monday 19th September 2022, the date of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s State Funeral, will be a national bank holiday. This will allow individuals, businesses and other organisations to pay their respects to Her Majesty and commemorate her reign, while marking the final day of the period of national…
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