British Govt cites cost for not giving holidays for Hindu, Muslim festivals

The British government is standing by its previous rejection of creating public holidays for major Hindu and Muslim festivals on grounds of cost, despite calls from MPs for change to reflect Britain’s increasingly diverse society.

Following a debate in the House of Commons on two public petitions that sought to make Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha as well as Diwali and Dussera public holidays in the UK, the British government said it didn’t believe that these extra holidays were necessary, pointing to the costs to the economy of having these additional days, and the fact that Britain’s existing legislation provided sufficient flexibility for workers to be able to take time off.

“As a government we will continue to encourage businesses to respect people’s views and meet their needs,” said Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst.

‘Strong support’

MPs from the across the political spectrum had made a case with the government for the introduction of these days as public holidays, noting that Britain had amongst the least number of public holidays in Europe and the Western world.

“I strongly support the principle of providing more public holidays — we have far too few in this country — and I strongly believe that we should base them around the major religions, to demonstrate that we celebrate all religions,” said Conservative MP Bob Blackman.

“In our much more diverse country, as it is now, we have great adherence to religious faith, particularly among the great religions… Why not recognise that fact and give everyone the opportunity to have a day off and recharge on that basis?”

Martyn Day, the Scottish National Party MP who introduced the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, noted that a consultation they had carried out which found that 87 per cent of respondents felt that not allowing time off for religious occasions was discriminatory while 84 per cent said they were not able to ask for time off from work or education. “There are clearly underlying issues that need to be addressed.” According to the 2011 census there are 2.7 million Muslims (4.8 per cent of the UK population) while there are 817,000 Hindus (1.5 per cent of the population).

Floating framework

Ahead of the debate, the Hindu Council UK had suggested the introduction of a floating framework whereby current fixed bank holidays could be exchanged for days when other religious festivals took place.

However, others had argued against the provision of the religious public holidays. The National Secular Society warned that introducing more religious public holidays would disadvantage workers by reducing their freedom to take annual leave when it most suited them, and also reduce social unity.

The majority of Britain’s public holidays were secular and new ones should be justified on secular grounds, they said in a letter to the Petitions Committee.

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