Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the economic consequences of annual leave entitlement not taken by employees in 2020 as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
In light of the pandemic, the Government introduced the Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 which allow four weeks of annual leave to be carried into the following two leave years if, due to the effects of coronavirus, it is not reasonably practicable for a worker to take this leave in the year to which it relates. These regulations ensure that workers who are unable to take their holiday due to coronavirus do not risk losing their holiday entitlement.
These regulations relax the obligation on employers to ensure that workers can take holiday in the leave year to which it relates, providing additional flexibility to support both employers and workers. It is a matter for individual employers and their workers to consider whether it is possible to facilitate a worker taking annual leave at a specific time.