In the United Kingdom, public holidays are days on which most businesses and non-essential services are closed.

[3] Before 1980, collective agreements widely included public holidays as part of a standard entitlement to time off.

There are eight bank holidays a year in England and Wales, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland.

Additional days have been allocated for special events, such as royal weddings, coronations, and jubilees.

Easter Monday is a bank holiday in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but not in Scotland.

[10] Each year's date was announced in Parliament on an ad hoc basis, to the despair of the calendar and diary publishing trade.

[11] The rule seems to have been to select the weekend of the last Saturday in August, so that in 1968[12] and 1969[13] Bank Holiday Monday actually fell in September.

[citation needed] In fact, the average number of non-weekend holidays in such countries is only marginally higher (and in some cases lower) than the UK.

[26] The Act does not provide for a bank holiday to be suppressed by royal proclamation without appointing another day in its place.

Likewise, if people are required to work on a bank holiday, there is no statutory right to an enhanced pay rate nor to a day off in lieu, although many employers do give either or both.

This has resulted in a number of local authorities creating a public holiday on Easter Monday.

[citation needed] This has resulted in many banks now providing only a limited service on 2 January, with most members of staff still entitled to the holiday.