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Thursday 4 April 2013

Some anti-monarchists need educating

The BBC and various anti-monarchist groups like to misrepresent the cost of the UK monarchy and this annoys me. This piece repeated the familiar misrepresentation that:

'The total cost of keeping the monarchy was £38.2m during the 2009-10 financial year, a drop of 7.9% (£3.3m) on the previous year.'
This looks at just one side of the equation: the costs of the Civil List which is soon to be replaced by the awfully named "sovereign support grant". The other side that is as usual ignored is that in 1760 it was decided that the entire cost of the Civil List should be paid by Parliament in return for the monarch surrendering his hereditary revenues from the Crown Estate to Parliament for the duration of George III's reign. This agreement with some alterations is still in place today.

So how much is the The Crown Estate worth to the UK taxpayer? The last figures I saw was around £190 million a year.

So why does the BBC insist on repeating the cost of the Royal Family <£40 million a year but ignores the income forgone by them in return for the civil list of around £190 million?

2 comments:

Alex said...

Actually, it isn't just a historical matter. Every monarch surrenders the right to the income from the Crown Estates on accession to the throne.

Not a sheep said...

I know, it started with George III.