Royal Family: Civil List
Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making with the decennial review of the Civil List and grant-in-aid to the Royal Family.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to have a short debate on the basis for the Royal Family's financing. This is supposed to be done on a 10-year basis, and the last time was in 2000, so it is a timely opportunity. Of course, quite recently, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made announcements about royal financing in the Statement on the comprehensive spending review.
As some background, at the moment, the Royal Family receives £7.9 million civil list for salaries, entertainment, opening Parliament, et cetera, £15.4 million for palace repairs and maintenance and about £7 million for travel. That comes to a total of about £30 million annually, plus security. That is designed to fund the Royal Family’s state activities and maintain the buildings and palaces used. I think that the buildings include Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle but not Sandringham or Balmoral.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh receive money to undertake royal work, as they do very well. They deserve credit for reducing their travel bill in the past year in parallel with the cuts that the Government announced. The Queen has also announced that she will try to reduce the running costs of the palace’s activities.
Prince Charles is in a different situation, as he relies on income from the Duchy of Cornwall to maintain his household and activities, which goes back to the time of the Black Prince and was seen by successive sovereigns as providing a separate income for the monarch's eldest son. Last year, the Duchy provided £17 million for Prince Charles. Sadly, I have not been able to see any evidence that he has followed his mother's lead in trying to reduce costs.
Looking at the travel of the Royal Family, in which I have taken interest for some time, in addition to the three members of the Royal Family whom I have mentioned, there are nine others who do not get paid a salary by the state but who receive royal travel finance, details of which are published every year in the royal travel reports. This may all sound fine and equitable, so why is there a problem?
Out of the £7 million for royal travel, when one looks at examples, there are some concerns. For example, the Duke of York took a £6,000 helicopter trip from his home in London to open a bridge in Sussex. That was last year. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall flew to Kirkwall and Edinburgh at a cost of £15,000 on a charter flight to visit some lifeboats and a marine centre. That is all very good. Also, the Duke of York spent £14,000 of our money visiting lifeboat stations. I am not saying that they should not do it, but there is a question whether they really ought to have charter flights and spend quite so much money on them. Perhaps it would be better if they went a bit slower.
Unfortunately, transparency has got more difficult since it was agreed between the Treasury and the Royal Family that only journeys over £10,000 are recorded separately. A couple of years ago, Princess Anne took a £5,000 helicopter trip from London to visit a pony club rally in the Midlands, and Charles took a helicopter from his Gloucester home to Gloucester. I have to ask: what is wrong with using cars or scheduled trains?
There are several issues here. Is it necessary for the state to fund the travel of 12 members of the Royal Family? Do they need to go so fast, so frequently and with so much so-called security that helicopters have to be used? For the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles, that is probably reasonable, but what about some of the others? What was the value to the UK of a state visit to South America, including the Galapagos Islands, which cost more than £600,000 in 2009? It is a nice way of seeing the islands, but at taxpayers’ expense? There are some serious questions that need to be answered about whether the state should be funding all 12 of those people travelling for royal duties. Some people might suggest that they get jobs and pay for their own travel.
There is also another problem, exacerbated by the lack of transparency, about which activities are state functions and which are private. The activities of the Duchy of Cornwall are a good example. It is a business; it pays some tax; but it is also a way of providing the heir to the throne with some income to undertake his official duties. He has 124 staff to do that, who, I am told, write regular letters to Ministers—some of my colleagues who are former Ministers said that that caused quite a lot of trouble—lobbying for pet architects, commissions or whatever. Last year, I saw evidence in Cornwall of the Duchy encouraging one of its tenants to flout the planning and environmental laws to build an oyster farm on the Halford River. They put this metal cage down in an SSSI without bothering to get planning permission or to do an environmental study. That is wrong. It is throwing weight around with people who do not feel that they can respond. It is also meddling in government, with the taxpayer funding the meddling. I believe that he should be above politics, and certainly not paid by taxpayers to lobby.
Her Majesty the Queen has a much better track record of staying out of politics, and she is not wasting money, but I worry about Chancellor’s latest proposal in the CSR to give the royal household a proportion of the profits from the Crown Estate. It is suggested that it would be 15 per cent of the profits, which would give them about £37 million a year, which would be a 44 per cent increase on the present amount. The Chancellor claims that that is a better idea because it would avoid the embarrassment of regular negotiations with the Palace, but the Crown Estate has been a part of government revenue since the time of George III. He gave up his right to receive any revenue for them to get bailed out because he ran out of money. What is the future of the revenue of the Crown Estate? It has lots of land in London and, we hope, the revenue from that will increase, and there are lots of wind farms being developed around the country, for which they receive a royalty. However, that can go up and down in revenue, and it seems a bit odd to link a long-term arrangement for funding for the monarch’s official duties to a percentage of such a volatile revenue. If the percentage is not fixed, there will probably be many fraught and embarrassing negotiations every year. Another anomaly is that the Crown Estate is still owned by the sovereign, even though the revenue is handed over. I would suggest that consideration should be given to handing over ownership of the Crown Estate to the state once and for all. That would provide the opportunity for some rather better parliamentary scrutiny. I worry about the longer term because Prince Charles has a record of meddling. He supports wind farms so surely there is going to be a temptation to speak out in favour of these, which would have the effect of increasing his revenue if they are offshore. It would be a strong temptation which would be hard to avoid.
I hope that the Government and the Royal Family will start negotiating the next 10–year arrangement for the funding of official royal activities based on six issues: first, by stating clearly what buildings, contents, et cetera, are owned by the state and loaned to the monarch to enable them to undertake their constitutional duties; secondly, by transferring the Crown Estate to state ownership; thirdly, by stating clearly which activities and members of the Royal Family are part of the duties and who should get free travel—and I suggest there is an urgent need to review the roles of the minor royals in this context; fourthly, by reviewing the security needs and costs, particularly of the minor royals—royal security costs £150 million a year at the moment and I question whether that is all really necessary; fifthly, by fixing the 10-year figure for the Civil List, taking into account the savings and everything else we have talked about; and, sixthly, by doing the same with the Duchy of Cornwall, making it a state-owned landlord with any profit going to the state and giving Prince Charles an allowance for the Civil List. It is not quite clear from the Chancellor’s proposed changes whether this is part of his intentions or not.
In conclusion, the Chancellor has hinted that dealing with the royal funding has become a thorn in Ministers’ sides. I believe it could get very much worse unless the Government take this issue seriously and undertake a full and transparent review of the Royal Family’s finances.
Lord Addington
My Lords, when I found myself being volunteered to speak in this debate, I was not sure what direction the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was going to go in. To hear from the Labour Benches a call for the nationalisation of private landholdings, which is in effect what they are, cast me back to my youth and speeches of days gone by, but that is by the bye.
Many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, have been made in many forms in the media over the years. The Prince of Wales is accused of throwing his weight around by everyone he wins against but he is applauded by others. He is not the monarch yet but he is entitled to his opinion. Does he abuse his position? Do we abuse our positions? Those of us who sat through the last debate heard how non-elected people are almost perfect. We have great worth and value, et cetera—those of us who have come here via a hereditary route, albeit with chinks and having been rebranded occasionally, and those who have not. Not everyone agrees with the architects the Prince of Wales has annoyed, and wind power is ultimately cleaner than other forms of power. So let us just stand back a bit.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made an important point about justifying who is on that list and who is taking on those duties, but when it comes to cutting down on security for anyone undertaking a public duty who is potentially an incredibly soft target, not only endangering them but everyone around them, I would step very cautiously towards that. Maybe we should just send them out less. I wonder how many members of the Royal Family, especially its junior members, would be quite happy to be sent out less. But the idea that they should not travel securely and safely, particularly in these times, is something we should think long and hard about.
The change to the sovereign support grant—or the SSG, as it is called in the briefing I received—sounds sensible, bringing everything together in one coherent lump. As for making money from privately owned land, inherited from a line of succession, with the Crown getting most of the money back, who knows? We are treading on some very uncertain ground. But ultimately, if we do not use the Royal Family, what else do we use? Once again, going back to the previous debate—I wonder whether I am cheating by mentioning it—would an elected President be any cheaper to run? I suspect not. The French President still has a lot of cavalrymen wearing heavy armour parading round in front of him. The American Presidents have marines in full-dress uniforms marching around in front of them. Would that be any cheaper overall? I do not know but I suspect not. I doubt whether any regime is going to sell off Windsor Castle as a theme park or shopping mall. So if we are going to keep the institution, if we want to have a head of state who fulfils the functions both publicly and diplomatically, it is going to cost some money. We cannot get rid of the historical infrastructure, and if we have people travelling outside on public engagements, including anyone who has a connection with them, we are going to keep them safe. I would be very careful about saying we should do things on the cheap because I do not want to be the one who condemns a historic building or causes a major terrorist incident.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for giving us the opportunity for this debate. My last intervention on a Royal Family issue was when I asked the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, when he was president of the Board of Trade, whether the Government would consider promoting or supporting a special classic horse race in 2012 to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s diamond jubilee. A number of people were quite interested in that and I still hope there may be a possibility that such a unique race may be run because I believe that Her Majesty has been an outstanding public servant, and that when we come to 2012 we should do everything in our power to let not just the country but the world see what we think of her. So I come in as a supporter of the monarchy and not as a republican. I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was speaking as a republican either, but, like him, I am also interested in how public money is defrayed, especially at a time of extreme economic constraints that are being forced through at the moment by the coalition Government. So I am interested in access to financial and related information on public expenditure in the way that my noble friend Lord Berkeley was seeking to shed revealing light on it.
It has not always been easy to access the Royal Family’s expenditure and its income—it is difficult to trace the real overall expenditure when a range of departments pick up a range of different bills—and freedom-of-information exemptions in certain areas prevent people from securing certain pieces of information. But it would be churlish not to say that there has been greater openness in recent years and that the Royal Household has made major efforts to increase its efficiency and to contain the growth of costs that we saw some years ago. The Civil List has been frozen for a number of years and it will remain frozen at £7.9 million for the coming year.
The present Civil List processes will then be changed and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his words,
“will propose a new means of consolidated support for Her Majesty for the future”,
and that will come at a later date. As part of this change, the Royal Household has agreed that, in future, Civil List expenditure will be subject to the same audit scrutiny as other government expenditure both through the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons. This is a strong step forward and should be welcomed by all. It is good that the Royal Household has been prepared to go down this route.
However, that progress was somewhat tarnished last month when George Osborne announced that the existing Civil List arrangement, which determines how much the state pays to the Royal Family, should be abandoned. Instead, the Royal Family will get 15 per cent of the profits from the Crown Estate’s £6 billion property portfolio. I shall give the reasons for making that comment. Over the past 10 years, the capital value of the Crown Estate has increased by £2.6 billion. The estate owns around £6 billion of land and other assets and chattels that last year brought in a profit of £210 million. But as my noble friend Lord Berkeley indicated, and as the high degree of press coverage of this shows, there are substantial rumours around that the profits of the Crown Estate are set to rocket in the coming decade as revenues come in from offshore wind turbines installed on the Crown Estate seabed. It is projected that the development of wind turbines and farms could more than double the current annual profits of the Crown Estate.
Developing wind power is expensive, especially when it is developed offshore. Progress to date has been slow because of the high initial investment costs—sufficiently so that, notwithstanding the current restraints we are facing, the Government, in trying to accelerate development and attract more money into developing offshore wind farms, recently stated that they would be prepared to make available an extra £200 million of subsidies for offshore wind farms and for the port facilities and grid links that will be needed to handle the electricity. Thus the Royal Household will additionally be indirect beneficiaries of a very substantial taxpayer investment of £200 million, which will help to boost Crown Estate profits. From those, the household will then take 15 per cent.
We already spend more on our Royal Family than is spent on any other royal family in Europe. It would be ironic if these new arrangements mean that, for the first time since Parliament bailed out George III’s debts by taking over the management of the Crown Estate and introducing Civil List payments that have to be negotiated between the Government and the Royal Household to determine its expenditure, this new coalition Government will now entirely reverse the system. Instead, our greatly indebted state—we are told this every day—will hand the Royal Family an independent source of income from the Crown Estate that could greatly outstrip the household’s current and anticipated costs. It does not surprise me that Prince Charles, who has an aversion to onshore wind farms, has now become a well-known campaigner for offshore wind turbines. If he was a parliamentarian, I think he would be requested to declare a personal interest before making any speeches about the development of green marine energy, but that is an aside that perhaps I should withdraw.
I will be interested to hear from the Minister whether my understanding of what is about to happen is correct. I should also like to know if there will be any public consultation on the review process that has now been put in train, the extent to which Parliament will be involved in that consultation and, indeed, whether the public will be involved. I ask this especially since only in the past few days Her Majesty the Queen has launched a Facebook page that has attracted a substantial amount of interest, with 100,000 people logging on to it. Answers to these questions and the detail that will arise from these topics are things that ought to be in the public domain. I think that more openness would strengthen the Royal Family’s position rather than weaken it because, as we all know in a modern society, secrecy creates more problems than it leads to solutions.
My final and perhaps most important question is this. If I am right and there is to be a 15 per cent take from Crown Estate profits, whatever they might be, given that there could be very substantial increases in those profits, have the Government given any thought to the need for a cap? How much could be paid over to the Royal Household? I ask this because even though the household will declare its expenditure to the NAO and so on, it is conceivable that there could be a very substantial gap between the costs of running the household and what the profits turn out to be by 2015 or 2020. In the interests of the Royal Family, I do not think that that would be the best way to go. There is a requirement for a reasonable approach to be taken, and we could end up with an option, the one we are now considering, that would lead to a level of unreasonableness that would be unacceptable to the public at large.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for tabling this timely debate. He has made some important points on which I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. As he said, the changes announced by the Chancellor in the CSR could potentially have large financial implications which should be the subject of proper parliamentary scrutiny, notwithstanding the sensitivity of some of the issues raised.
The monarchy and its funding has always been a tricky issue for those on this side of the House—populated, as we have heard, with both ardent monarchists and equally ardent republicans. I hope to tread lightly on this subject. But I am sure that my colleagues, whatever their views on the principle of a monarch in this country, recognise the strong and ongoing public support for the Royal Family in general and for the Queen in particular. She has been a constant in times of turmoil. She is on her 12th Prime Minister and is a constant in the world too. The Queen is widely admired throughout the world, and I have heard it said that she has met more heads of state than any other person, alive or dead, which is quite a feat. In addition, one could argue that the Royal Family provides good value for money for the Civil List. Its attraction in terms of tourism for Britain should not be underestimated, especially as tourism is the fourth largest employment sector in the UK.
I shall move on to the financial structure for the Royal Household, which is the subject of this debate. As we have heard, until now the Crown Estate has managed Crown land on behalf of the Government. Surplus revenue goes to the Treasury in return for which the monarch receives a fixed annual payment—the Civil List. It is an arrangement that has worked well for a number of years and the amount paid has been gradually falling in real terms. But there has been some worrying press coverage of the Chancellor’s recent announcement suggesting that there is some kind of secret deal afoot here. I am sure that that is not the intention or the desire of the Royal Family, and it is therefore vital to defend its reputation by providing further details as soon as possible. So I would be interested to hear from the Minister what pressures the Government came under to change the Civil List arrangements and what the reasons were. In what way was the Civil List system not working? What was the problem the Government were trying to solve when they came up with the new proposals for a sovereign support grant?
Reflecting the public mood on the Royal Family, since 1993 the Queen and the Prince of Wales have paid tax under voluntary arrangements agreed with the Government. Most of their sources of income are now dealt with in accordance with the usual tax rules. This includes activities such as private investments, profit and losses from farming at the royal houses, such as Balmoral and Windsor, and money generated from opening to the public the houses and gardens at Sandringham and Balmoral.
According to the comprehensive spending review document, grant support for the Royal Household will be static in 2011-12 and 2012-13 at £30 million, a further real terms cut. After that the Royal Household will receive the new sovereign support grant linked to the revenue of the Crown Estate. So, in echoing some of the questions that have been raised in the debate, I ask the Minister to give more details of how this will work in practice. There are no further details in the CSR document, or anything on the Royal Family’s website, or on the Crown Estate website.
In particular, the new arrangements in which the sovereign support grant is based on a proportion of the Crown Estate’s turnover could, as we have heard, vary wildly from year to year. How will the Queen budget for expenditure on that basis? Furthermore, in the welcome circumstances of the Crown Estate managing its activities particularly well—my noble friend Lord Berkeley gave an example of how this might work—the Royal Household income could rise significantly from its current position, such that there could be real public concern that the Royal Family was doing rather well while the public were living in a time of greater austerity. I should welcome the Minister’s comments on that possibility. Conversely, if the global economy was to take a serious downward turn, the Royal Household income could, potentially, fall substantially below its current level. What would happen in these circumstances? Would the Government be forced to step in?
It is hard to imagine that the Chancellor’s proposals are as sketchy as has so far been revealed. It would therefore be of great assistance if the Minister could provide details of the background to the agreements made so far, the remaining issues still to be discussed and the process of parliamentary scrutiny to be provided. We could then all be assured that the transparency and accountability developed over the years will still be honoured.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on securing this opportunity to debate a matter that is of considerable interest to people and I thank him for the clarity with which he advanced his arguments and sought information about the royal finances.
I am sure that noble Lords will join me in recognising the Queen’s long and loyal service and her immense contribution to public life, as several noble Lords mentioned. I will in a moment explain the proposed new arrangements for supporting Her Majesty’s official business as monarch, but I should perhaps first give some context.
Since 1760, successive sovereigns have surrendered to the Exchequer their hereditary revenues, such as from the Crown Estate, in return for an annual income, known as the Civil List, and certain other financial support. The Queen’s Civil List covers the central staff costs and running expenses of Her Majesty’s official household. Certain other expenditure of the Royal Household is met by government departments through annually voted supply grants, including, in particular, the grants in aid for royal travel and maintenance of the royal palaces. The Civil List Act 1972 requires the Royal Trustees to keep under review and report on Civil List expenditure and the sums available to meet it, with reports to be made every 10 years.
In the trustees’ 1990 report, the fixed annual amount of the Civil List was set to exceed projected expenditure in the earlier years, with the surplus being accumulated to meet later expected deficits as a result of inflation. Rather than forecasting inflation for the 10-year period, the Royal Trustees recommended £7.9 million as the fixed annual amount of the Civil List for the ensuing 10 years, assuming annual inflation of 7.5 per cent. In the event, of course, annual underlying retail prices index inflation averaged about 3.2 per cent during those 10 years, while Civil List expenditure increased by approximately 10 per cent less than inflation. Additionally, interest of about £12 million was earned on the surplus, leaving a reserve of about £35 million to be carried forward into the 10-year period to the end of December 2010.
In view of that substantial reserve and the expectation of low inflation, in July 2000 the Royal Trustees recommended that the fixed annual amount of the Civil List should remain at £7.9 million. Also, at the suggestion of the Royal Household, it took on responsibility for some £2 million of expenditure previously met from the votes of government departments or from the consolidated fund, utilising a substantial part of the reserve during the new 10-year period.
In his Budget Statement on 22 June this year, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the decennial review of the Civil List. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, my right honourable friend also announced that payment of the Civil List for the calendar year 2011 would remain unchanged at £7.9 million. Therefore, the amount provided for the Civil List will have remained unchanged for more than 20 years and is today worth only a quarter of what it was in 1990. The Chancellor also said that he would, in due course, propose a new means of consolidated support for Her Majesty in future. He made it clear that he wanted a durable settlement for the Royal Household that would not require frequent government intervention in future.
Before coming to the new arrangements, let me give your Lordships some details of the principal grants in aid that are made by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Transport. The property services grant in aid is the annual funding provided by DCMS to the Royal Household to meet the cost of property maintenance and other costs at the royal palaces used by Her Majesty in fulfilling the role and functions of head of state, known as the occupied royal palaces. DCMS has overall responsibility for the maintenance of and provision of services to the occupied royal palaces. However, since 1 April 1991, management and operating responsibility has been with the Royal Household.
The royal travel grant in aid is the annual funding provided by the Department for Transport to the Royal Household to meet the costs of official royal travel by air and rail. As with support for the occupied royal palaces, support for official royal travel is one of the expenses met by the Government in return for the surrender by Her Majesty of the hereditary revenues of the Crown. The Department for Transport has overall responsibility for the use made of moneys voted by Parliament for royal travel. However, day-to-day responsibility for that expenditure has been with the Royal Household since 1 April 1997.
In his spending review Statement on 20 October, the Chancellor announced the new arrangements for support of the Royal Household. He announced that grant support will be static in 2011-12 and 2012-13 at £30 million. As Her Majesty has graciously agreed, this will call for a 14 per cent reduction in cash terms for Royal Household spending in 2012-13, as the Civil List reserve will by then have been exhausted. In addition, in order to support the costs of the historic diamond jubilee, to which the whole country is looking forward, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, said, a one-off additional £1 million will be provided. I am sure that the whole House will join me in appreciating the Queen’s considerable achievements in leading and guiding the country with dignity and grace for such a sustained period.
From 2012, support for the Queen in her official duties will be simplified. It is intended that there will be a straightforward unitary grant to Her Majesty, replacing the current system of multiple grants. From 2012-13, the new sovereign support grant paid to the Royal Household will support Her Majesty’s expenditure on her official business, replacing the Civil List, which is paid directly from the Exchequer, and the voted grants in aid for royal transport and royal palaces. It will be set by a formula related to the revenue of the Crown Estate and paid through the Treasury vote. Her Majesty has graciously agreed that, for the first time, funding through the sovereign support grant will be audited by the National Audit Office, providing transparency and accountability. A single grant structure will allow the Royal Household to set its own priorities and control costs. These arrangements will be transparent, accountable and dignified, generating a durable outcome that gives the Royal Household security over future funding.
Giving effect to these proposals will require primary legislation. The necessary Bill has not yet been drafted, but the Government hope that it will be introduced so that it can pass in time for the start of the sovereign support grant in 2012. The proportion of the Crown Estate’s revenue to be used will be decided by Parliament, but there will of course be safeguards to ensure that the formula is fair.
The noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, expressed concern about the volatility of earnings from the Crown Estate and whether it was an appropriate basis for annual funding. I quite accept the question. It is important to be clear: the Crown Estate’s earnings will continue to be remitted directly to the Exchequer as now. They will not be hypothecated to the Royal Household. Several noble Lords mentioned a figure of 15 per cent and I should like to try to correct a misunderstanding. The setting of the formula for the SSG, which is for Parliament to decide, will simply use Crown Estate revenue as an appropriate starting point. It will not continue into the future to be based on a simple percentage. However, I am not clear on that point; I shall write to noble Lords afterwards, as there may be a misunderstanding.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked whether the Prince of Wales accepts the need to reduce his costs and how the mode of transport for members of the Royal Family is decided on. In deciding those things, the household will have to bear in mind criteria including the safety not only of the royal person but also of people in their vicinity, security, value for money, the length of the journey, whether the transport is consistent with the requirements and dignity of the occasion, the most effective use of the Royal Family’s time and minimisation of disruption to others.
The noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, commented on the need for transparency. The new sovereign support grant will mean that all royal expenditure will be audited by the National Audit Office.
My noble friend Lord Addington suggested that a president would be no cheaper. Other countries are strangely coy about publishing the full costs of their presidencies, so it is difficult either to agree or disagree with confidence, but I note the rumoured $100 million cost of President Obama’s inauguration. I wonder whether we perhaps do not enjoy a bargain in this country. My noble friend also made a strong point about security in answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I agree with him.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, asked about the publication of the finances. They are published annually. All trips of greater than £10,000 by air and rail are listed separately from the royal travel grant in aid.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, asked about a cap. The formula for the sovereign support grant will be set by Parliament. It is envisaged that there will be a mechanism to ensure that the formula is fair and neither adversely too high or too low.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, asked about the opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny and for more detail about the new arrangements. The details will be set out in a Bill that will be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.
I suspect that I have not been able to answer all noble Lords’ questions—
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanations. It is an excellent idea to put all the different grants from different departments in the one pot, which will come from the Treasury at the end of the day. However, what is the argument for linking it to the Crown Estate’s profit, which goes into the Treasury in the first place? If he does not have the answer now, perhaps he could include it in his letter.
Lord De Mauley
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. I am conscious that I have not adequately answered it. I am finding it difficult to express the answer in words; I am out of time. I will write to him if I may and put a copy of the letter in the Library.
I hope that in the short time available I have been able to give some help to noble Lords in obtaining a better understanding of the provision of financial support for the Royal Household. The Government are extremely grateful to Her Majesty for accepting a measure of austerity in grant support in the near term and we all hope that she has a continuing long and happy reign.