Early May Bank Holiday

The Government's 1976 announcement took effect on Monday 1 May 1978. Eight days later Viscount Davidson asked the Lords who had decided on a public holiday on 1 May, and whether it had been wise. He suggested the public saw a Government imposing its political ideology, since 1 May is Labour Day.

Baroness Emmet of Amberley told the House it was not actually a bank holiday, because bank holidays must go through a parliamentary procedure. Lord Wallace of Coslany, for the Government, agreed that it was a public holiday. Section 1(3) says otherwise: an appointed day is a bank holiday under the Act.

In December 1992 the employment minister Michael Forsyth announced a consultation on the holiday's future in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the three nations where it rests on a proclamation. He called it the May Day socialist holiday. Any change could have taken effect from 1995, and none did.

In 2011 the Department for Culture, Media and Sport printed a table of how each UK bank holiday is established in law. Its row for the first Monday in May reads: "Royal Proclamation in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Banking and Financial Dealing Act 1971 in Scotland." The department wondering whether to move the day had written the answer down itself.