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St David’s Day should be made a bank holiday, a Plaid Cymru Senedd Member has argued.

Peredur Owen Griffiths, who represents South Wales East, has written to the UK Government calling for “parity” with both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, St Andrew’s Day is a bank holiday, while Northern Ireland gets bank holidays for St Patrick’s Day on March 17, and another to mark the Battle of the Boyne on July 12.

In his letter to Kemi Badenoch, the UK Government secretary of state for business and trade, Mr Owen Griffiths said it was “high time the people of Wales get to enjoy what some counterparts in the UK already have – a bank holiday on the day of their patron saint”.

The letter read: “As you may already know, the people in Wales, as well as England, have the fewest number of bank holidays in Western Europe.

‘Our eight public holidays pale in comparison with the 14 enjoyed by the people of Malta. Even if you compare us to Scotland and Northern Ireland, we lose out on an extra one or two bank holidays respectively.”

Mr Owen Griffiths highlighted how “hundreds of thousands of people” will be working on St David’s Day “when they should be having the day off to relax, as well as celebrate their nationhood, their history, and their culture”.

He added: “Recent times have shown that extra bank holidays can be granted by order of Westminster Government.

“Parity with Scots and the people of Northern Ireland is not a lot to ask for, so in the words of St David, I urge you to ‘do the little things’ and grant us that extra bank holiday.”

Making St David’s Day a bank holiday is supported by Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, while Welsh Labour and the Welsh Conservatives have also voiced their support in the past.

Prior to the 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections, then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn included UK-wide bank holidays on each of the four patron saint days in his party’s manifesto.

In 2022, Caerphilly County Borough Council approved a motion calling for a Wales-wide bank holiday on St David’s Day.