Royal Finances Campaign
And you thought MPs were expensive. A royal is 21 times more expensive than your MP.
It's not just the Civil List. In total the monarchy cost you over £180m last year. Here's how:
| The Queen's Civil List | £15.1m |
| Parliamentary annuities (Prince Philip) | £0.4m |
| Palaces and castles | £15m |
| Travel | £6.2m |
| Expenditure met by gov depts | £4.9m |
| Security | £100m |
| Duchy of Cornwall lost revenue | £16m |
| Duchy of Lancaster lost revenue | £13m |
| Costs to councils | £10m |
| Unpaid tax | £2m (?) |
| Travel and accomodation for Prince Charles | £1.6m |
| Total | £184.2m |
A recent ICM poll commissioned by Republic showed an overwhelming majority in favour of royal finances being subjected to the same level of scrutiny as MPs' expenses.
The campaign
Our 'Royal Finances' campaign is aimed at challenging the way in which taxpayers' money is spent on the monarchy, the lack of accountability and transparency in the management of royal spending and the spin and PR which the palace uses to justify wasting your hard earned pounds. While we continue to demand the abolition of the monarchy, we believe that for as long as it remains the palace must be fully transparent in the way it manages its funding and must be accountable to parliament. That's why we propose 7 simple reforms to royal finances and the management of the monarchy that will bring the institution into line with the highest standards of accountabilty and transparency.
Take Action
Things you can do to back this campaign:
The Royal Finances Reform Charter 2009
Republic's Royal Finances Reform Charter proposes the following simple reforms, to improve accountability, transparency and fairness in royal finances and to appropriately assign public funds to the Treasury:|
1 | Parliament to set an annual fixed budget for the monarchy, to be managed and reported on by a government department, not Buckingham Palace; |
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2 | The Queen to be given a salary, and the Civil List to be scrapped; |
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3 | All security costs to be made transparent and accountable; |
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4 | All costs of royal visits around the country to be incorporated into the monarchy's budget, not met by local authorities; |
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5 | The institution of the monarchy, and all members of the royal household, to be required to abide by the same tax laws and rules as all other public bodies and private individuals; |
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6 | The Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall to be fully investigated by parliament with a view to transfering them into public ownership, with all profits going to the Treasury; |
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7 | The monarchy's finances to be fully scrutinised by the National Audit Office, in the same manner as any other public body. |
Reform to lead to abolition
Of course our aim remains clear: the abolition of the monarchy in favour of a democratic republican constitution. However, to ensure you, the voter and taxpayer, have all the facts and information to hand, we believe the management of the monarchy must be reformed now. This is why we are calling on the monarchy to be made into a government department, with a responsible minister who can be accountable in parliament. And it is why we launched our Royal Finances Reform Charter in 2008. The Charter has been updated in 2009 with a call for a full investigation in the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. It is worth noting that the idea for a government department to manage the monarchy is not a new one. It was proposed by Labour ministers back in the early 1970s. Here's what one report from the Guardian said on the matter:
...Labour's leaders have not always taken such a dismissive attitude towards reforming the royal finances. The newly released papers reveal that the Queen threatened to leave Buckingham Palace if a 1972 Labour plan went ahead to turn the monarchy into a government department.
The proposal, from Douglas Houghton, a former Labour chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, attracted widespread support at the highest levels of the Labour party, including from Roy Jenkins, and had the advantage that a minister responsible for royal finances would answer questions in parliament.
But the Queen's reaction was so hostile that Lord Cobbold made clear to the Treasury that her views should not be passed on even to the senior ministers and MPs on the select committee examining the new civil list proposals unless there was a guarantee they did not receive publicity.
"It is not clear that the Queen would wish to continue to occupy Buckingham Palace on these terms. If the palace were in effect a government department she might well wish to live elsewhere in a private capacity and appear at the palace only for official functions," noted the Treasury file.
from the Guardian.
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