Happy new year to all our readers.

There’s very little new legislation on the statute book and, on the face of it, 2022 looks to be a relatively quiet year in terms of confirmed employment law changes. But that could change: the Omicron variant is ripping through the country and new infections are getting close of 200,000 every day. It's therefore possible that the PM will impose new restrictions to protect the public and public services.

Plus, the government has been promising to publish a new Employment Bill since January 2020. It’s recently announced a number of consultations which suggests that it may start to push ahead with its manifesto commitment to ‘protect and enhance’ worker rights.

Extra bank holiday

To celebrate the Queen's platinum jubilee, there is an additional bank holiday in 2022. The May bank holiday weekend will be moved to Thursday 2 June and an additional bank holiday on Friday 3 June will give many people the opportunity to take a four-day weekend.

Employers will need to decide if their staff are entitled to take an additional day’s paid leave either on the 3 June or at another date in the holiday year. The starting point is to look at the holiday clause in the employee’s contract of employment. If the contract states that the employee is entitled to, for example, 28 days’ holiday which includes all statutory and bank holidays, employers aren't obliged to give them an extra day’s paid holiday. The same will apply if the contract just sets out the...

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