Sovereign Grant Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

May I make some progress before taking a few further interventions?

I should just mention, although the change to the Duchy of Cornwall is in a later clause, that as I explained to the House a couple of weeks ago, all Dukes of Cornwall are heirs to the throne, but not all heirs to the throne are Dukes of Cornwall. As a result, there is potential for there to be an heir to the throne who was not the Duke of Cornwall, because the Duke of Cornwall can only be the eldest son of the monarch. The heir to the throne could be either a daughter, granddaughter or grandson of the monarch, and they would not have access to the duchy’s income. The Bill proposes a change to that, but does not propose to change the Act of Settlement.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

I suspect that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee wants to intervene on that point.

[Keith Vaz]

I feel very guilty that the Chancellor has been speaking for so long and, because of all the interventions, is only on clause 1. I will not detain him for long, but I thank him for giving way. Will he update the House during the course of his speech, if he ever gets to complete it, on the negotiations that have been conducted by the Deputy Prime Minister with the Prime Ministers of 17 other Commonwealth countries, and let us know whether there has been any progress on the matter?

[Mr Osborne]

I think I will leave it to the Deputy Prime Minister to update the House on that. It is one of the many benefits that come from being Deputy Prime Minister that he gets to conduct these important negotiations. [Interruption.] They are extremely important negotiations. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) makes a good point in reminding the House that this question involves a lot of other countries. That explains why something that people assume would be quite simple to deal with in the House of Commons is not.

Let me talk about the actual numbers. How much is 15% of the Crown Estate profit, and how does it compare with what the royal family has spent in recent years on its official duties? In 2006, they spent £33 million; in 2007-08, they spent £35 million; and then £37 million and £34 million. The latest annual accounts, which were last week, showed that they spent £32 million. The amount varies a bit, because one-off capital projects are either undertaken or not in given years, but the average of the past five years is £34 million. It is interesting to note that it was £49 million 20 years ago, so the latest figure shows quite a dramatic reduction compared with what they used to spend. In real terms, the reduction is more than 50%.