Royal Children - Time for State school?

[microplastic]

Should the Royal Family children be educated in state schools? Why do they get to attend private schools on taxpayers money? Is this something the Labour government could push for?

Fine with this if all the politicians, including Labour, do the same. Safety is an issue.

@MouseofCommons you are assuming state schools are full of drug dealers.
If the royals went to state schools of course the school would be very carefully chosen. They would not send them to join a class of career criminals.

What alternative do you propose? I can't think of a country( apart from dictatorships) where there's another way. You often have titular presidents in republics but where the main administration is run by a prime minister, but all those heads of state still pose a security risk.

I think there just as much drug ‘dealing’ going on in private schools - possibly more.

Too right but given the whole thing is a bloody circus, home school seems to be the best solution. How much are we paying for the kids security every day? It's so ridiculous. For a few kids to be treated as if they are godsent is bizarre and ridiculous.

Surely any parents have the right to choose their children's school according to personal preferences, beliefs and child's personality.
If we are going down the Royal route, neither the late Queen nor her sister went to any kind of school.
There could be an argument made for not having them educated at all...After all, many people seem to think they will not need to earn a living.

For those interested in discussing what the replacement options could be for replacing the monarch as head of state - or not. There’s a long running thread here: new voices and ideas welcome -

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/4787223-what-do-you-want-as-head-of-state-for-the-uk?page=9&reply=136324393

School fees are not paid for out of tax money. They are paid using Duchy of Cornwall profits.

Now, you coukd make great arguments about the infairness of huge herieditary estates keeping the very rich, very rich - but that's not specific to the royal family.

If we had a vote, I'd probably vote against the RF because I am sick of Britain's obsession with class, for which the RF epitomises the whole deal. But I couldn't care less they pay to educate their children - so long as they pay the VAT along with others (when it comes).

All state educated children attend school at the taxpayers' expense. Anyone sending their children to private school pays their own tax to educate other people's children and then pays privately for their own kids. The estimated cost of educating all those kids in the state sector is something like £7 Bn. Which ultimately we all pay. This is just the politics of envy and makes no financial sense whatsoever.

Don't Wills and Kate get their income from the Duchy of Cornwall? I don't think they feature on the civil list. As D and D of Cambridge they would have been c.l. So to begin with that's what would have funded the children's education. I don't understand why the King when Prince of Wales told Harry he couldn't afford to support him and Meghan as well as Wills and Kate, because W and K should have been c.l.

Assuming there should be royal children at all, the best state school in the UK isn’t able to provide the same quality education as the best private school (which is the crux of your problem). That’s a fact which shouldn’t be, and the royal children aren’t the cause of that. They’re just 3 of the thousands of children benefitting from that situation.

Secondly, the royal children (unlike every (?) other) are required to have a completely different childhood from non-royal children. Certainly the heir to the throne. Specific education; days off; non-school day duties to fulfil; public exposure; requirement for privacy for themselves and everyone around them etc. It wouldn’t be at all fair to impose that on a state school with zero fat in its budget, the rules by which is operates and is governed, strict hiring/firing rules, limited facilities etc.

Those kids need special treatment, basically, and I wouldn’t want any taxpayer funds being allocated to that. If your riposte is “well they can fund the extra themselves”: isn’t that basically private school?

They pay the school fees themselves not us! But security would be an absolute nightmare in any case. You sound deranged.

They'd also get moaned at for taking a school place when they can easily afford private...they can't win

They are mega rich. Anyone with that level of wealth would be completely unhinged to choose state which let’s be honest is mainly not as good. I remember the grief Diane abbot got for sending her boy to private school- she quite openly said she was being a bit of a hypocrite but putting her son first.

Security is going to be a massive consideration for them and that is only right. Those children didn’t ask to be born and they deserve to be safe and grow up with some normalcy. They know already that Eton can keep boys safe. Not every public school will be able to offer the same. I have a few boarding schools near me and I doubt any of them would cut the muster re security due to the open nature of the sites, the access by the public to use the facilities etc. My old state school wouldn’t have worked at all. Other than being a shit hole, it was very open etc. my. Children’s primary school actually probably would be possible security wise but secondary really is another ball game.

The civil list was abolished ages ago and replaced by the Sovereign Grant - the Grant is used to pay for very specific things for the royal family - upkeep of the historic buildings, expenses for working royals when they are on duty. It doesn’t pay for personal or living expenses for any of the members of the royal family. It also sits in a fund overseen by a government department - they don’t just hand the royals a bunch of cash - the fund pays out for documented expenses. If it’s not used it sits there and is used for the following year.

When Charles was heir he controlled the Duchy of Cornwall - the income from that is to support the heir and his family. That paid for living expenses for himself and his sons and their families.

Charles never said he couldn’t afford to support Harry and Meghan - Harry has some garbled story about being asked if Meghan would like to keep acting alongside discussions about reducing the core working royals which he seems to have conflated.

I'll stop simplifying things and hand back my passing grade when everyone else does!

WTF - we still have choices in this country!

@wordler how the fund is used is decided in reality by the King.

So if we made state schools smaller they'd be sufficient? Ok.

I mean they could afford for their DC to go private with their own private money so they're hardly going to be heading off to the local comp!

Stupid question!

Does this happen in any other countries that royal children go to state schools?

Yes - but it all has to be accounted for and he doesn’t get to keep the excess - it’s not like the civil list where working royals were basically being given an ‘income’. At that point they were being paid a set sum no matter how much ‘work’ they did. That’s a big difference to how it’s managed now.

And there’s government oversight - unused money stays in the fund with the option of reducing it if there’s too much left on a regular basis.

Have I understood you correctly - you want the prime minister to enshrine into law where one particular family is allowed to send their children to school?

And you don't see any problems with impingement on individual freedom and choice? Why not? The prime minister should not have the power to tell a family where their kids go to school. That's absurd.

Laws that aren't ad hoc and don't impinge on liberty would be: abolish royal family; abolish public schools; lower royal family income.

But you can't tell a wealthy family that their kids can't go to the school they've chosen.

We have an illusion of 'choice'. In reality if you can't afford private, you have the right to apply to a number of schools. However, if it's anything like round here where all schools are over subscribed the only one your child has a possibility of getting is the closest school unless you can get them into Grammar or a Church school (where again money talks!)