Civil List

Mary Macleod Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I want to put this debate in the context of Her Majesty’s life of service to this country. As we are all aware, the Queen fulfils a number of duties as Head of State, including her constitutional duties, such as the state opening of Parliament, giving Royal Assent to legislation, carrying out state and royal visits overseas, and receiving state and official visitors. However, the Queen, and indeed the whole royal family, play a much greater role in our society: that of providing a focus for national identity, unity and pride. They recognise success and contribute to our nation through their public service and support for the voluntary sector, which includes many of the unsung heroes in our local communities. The Queen and the royal family also support the vulnerable and highlight the need to help in challenging areas of society.

We need only cast our minds back a couple of months to the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for an illustration of how much the monarchy means to everyone in this country, and indeed across the world. The royal family is a hard-working institution, and we are rightly proud of it in this country. As we heard earlier, the Queen entertains almost 50,000 people per year, not to mention the many thousands of people she visits around the country and the world.

It is difficult to quantify the full benefit of the royal family, not just to tourism and our country’s status abroad, but to our national identity, history and traditions—the things that make us proud to be British. They also support our values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and equality.

More specifically on the motion, the Queen and the royal household currently receive funding from several sources, as we have heard. However, following the agreement made in 1760 in return for the fixed annual payment, Crown lands are managed on behalf of the Government, and the surplus revenue goes to the Treasury. In the last financial year, that amounted to more than £210 million. Let us be clear about this. In the last financial year, the Queen and the royal household received £38.2 million in total from the Government, and paid back to the Treasury £210.7 million in surplus revenue from the management of the Crown Estate. In other words, they contributed a net sum to the Government of £172.5 million. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Regardless of that net contribution to our economy over the past decade, the Queen and her staff have made significant efforts to make the royal household more efficient, as the Chancellor said. Head of State expenditure has more than halved during that time from the £87.2 million in 1991-92, to £38.2 million in 2009-10, and the projected spend this year of £35 million.

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor outlined in the Chamber today, a new sovereign support grant will be introduced to cover funding for the Queen and the royal household. The grant will combine all the sources of funding into one sum covering all the monarchy’s official expenditure, not just the expenditure currently covered by the civil list. This will simplify an overly complex process for allocating funding—one that is haphazard at best. The level of funding will be linked to the Crown Estate’s surplus and will provide levels similar to those currently received. Surpluses and funding will be held in reserve for future years and levels will be protected from falling significantly from previous years. As we heard, full parliamentary scrutiny and audits of all expenditure will continue. The proposals will provide for continuity in the event of the succession of a new monarch so as to ensure certainty and stability for the royal family and household. I believe completely in and support the three principles that the Chancellor outlined.

In summary, the sovereign support grant will give the royal household greater control to manage its funding and continue its efficiency measures. It will also provide clarity, flexibility and longer-term planning, and will make it much easier to communicate the finances of the Queen and the royal household to members of the public. The sovereign grant Bill is consistent with the Government’s quest for greater transparency of funding, which we are trying to get across government, together with increased accountability and focus on achieving value for money for taxpayers. It also, importantly, continues to support the sovereign in the long term in the outstanding contribution that she makes to this country on a daily basis. I therefore support the motion.