Also worth mentioning that while that's the minimum, for most types of jobs the practice tends to be 25 days + the 8 bank holidays.

The change in the law to increase the minimum to 28 days inclusive of bank holidays was relatively non-controversial as it affected a relatively small proportion of businesses.

We do 30 plus bank holidays, hence my initial misconception. People have to reserve a certain number of days for christmas shutdown, but generally there's enough for people to get a couple of big holidays in and time off around christmas/new year.

There is no legal entitlement for employees to have leave on bank/public holidays. Whether they do depends on their contract of employment.

If an employee's contract says they don't work bank holidays then those days are considered part of that employee's 28 day statutory minimum. If they do work bank holidays, or their contract is silent on the subject, then the employee still has a 28 day allowance but it doesn't include the bank holidays.

Also, some parts of the UK have more than 8 public holidays per year.