Older contracts and union deals can be quite good in the UK. I would bet if this company doesn’t have a union that newer employees would be limited in the number of days they can transfer to the next year, likely less than a week.

No no, this was multiple old guys and in addition to long service leave, they just never took leave.

For the UK I think the policy is in support of worker rights, in a round about kind of way. If you let people pay it out then they might never take leave and won't get the benefits of actually having had a break from work.