As Rachel Reeves struggles to balance the books, the Royal Family should forgo a £46 million increase in their funding. AIBU?

[User198174]

Due to an increase in Crown Estate profits, the government is set to increase its grant to the Royal Family from £ 86.3 million to £132.1 million.
As the Royal Family appear to be getting by at present on an £86.3 million grant, AIBU to say that they should share in the pain of the national squeeze on finances?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy5lzq94gqo.amp

I’ve just thought- if some people still think the Windsors own the Crown estate ( I do agree the name is confusing and it should renamed the National Estate) then they may also think that 125 million is the total cost of the Windsors

It isn’t . Many costs are kept secret but the real annual cost is closer to half a billion .
Half a billion annually to a family who protected Andrew for a decade before we found out …

I hope so too!

Mind-blowing amount of money for one already hugely privileged family…

@Bagsintheboot

You’ve completely misunderstood this mechanism
We own the crown estates .
We should - and were in the last- be getting 100 of profits .
It is not the case that the Windsors own it and hand over 75 % to us. No . We own it and are handing THEM 25%

As someone upthread said. That’s a small hospital a year. Or a school . Or a day centre.

The less we spend on the RF, the better. They are beyond rich, and the country needs the money.

The less we spend on the RF, the better. They are beyond rich, and the country needs the money.

I'm always stunned by the bullshit about them wanting to modernise the monarchy. How do you modernise being a head of state by birthright?

It is indeed a load of feudal nonsense.

Agree.
I'm always fascinated by the people that defend it!
Particularly after all the scandals.

Assume this is a joke?!

I assumed Randy Andy had so much time on his hands these days that he had started a Mumsnet account

I will happily open the odd hospital ward and make small talk at a few garden parties in exchange for owning vast swathes of England and being paid millions out of the public purse though if people really think that is a worthy cause

Yes! It’s as if they genuinely believe that these ordinary, flawed people are innately superior.
I am always struck by the slightly slack-jawed, glazed looks of awe people have when they are meeting these apparently magical beings. Photographs capture the gormless expressions perfectly.

I read it that way, but with royal fans, you can never tell. Some weird kind of self-abasing Stockhausen syndrome…

Today, the Guardian reports that Rachel Reeves is looking at the salary sacrifice scheme for bike purchase.
A Treasury source says “Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for luxury leisure.” 🤔

Yes I noticed that, and thought of this thread!

Off to the tower with you op.

I will watch my step!

For comparison, the bike scheme costs £130 million. The royals, after their £46 million boost, will receive £132 million.

The Guardian article doesn’t seem to suggest that the bike scheme will be axed completely. My reading is that Reeves will look for savings in it. And yet, there’s no talk of looking for savings in royal costs.

I'd love to see the same. I just don't think that tourists visit the country because the monarchy is there and would stop or significantly reduce if they were not. France, for example, generates a decent tourist interest without the monarchy and doesn't seem to suffer from any kind of reduced interest as a result of their monarchy not being there anymore and I am confident they make more money from all imperial palaces and residences being open to the public and tourists in full at all times as opposed to only their various sections being open as/when approved or desired by the existing residents as is the case in the UK.

Personally, it never occurred to me to visit or not visit any country because of some monarch or another still being or not being present there and maybe there are some people who are that interested in some monarchies that they would go to another country for the sake of them but I doubt that this is the main motivator for visiting any country for most tourists.

It doesn't look like we own it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate

And I guess we can assume that it's the taxpayer who foots the bill for the management and administration of the estate that we or the government don't own.

I completely agree.

You can bet the taxpayer is on the hook for it.

I am just very puzzled by what I can only call a set of very strange arrangements around it: the monarch owns it but it's not in private property of any monarch. There is some body that administers it on behalf the monarch but the money it generates goes to the Treasury for the "benefit of the nation" and yet the government also doesn't own it and neither can any government independently make all decisions related to it but it's being managed for "the benefit of the nation". Having said this, there is no transparency as to how it is being managed for the benefit of the nation. The Crown Estate Act 2015 reinforced independence of the Crown Estate but it will report annually to the Parliament and the monarch for the sake of transparency and proper governance.

Why does it all need to be so complicated if there is so much transparency and proper governance?

It is quite deliberately kept opaque.

No, we do own the estates

This is more smoke and mirrors public / private obfuscation

What your Wiki link ( wiki is not the most reliable ) says is that the ‘monarch/ head of state’ holds it by virtue of their position as head of state . IE the Windsors do not own it as individuals
. If the Windsors weren’t there , there would be no symbolic monarch and no money at all going to the Windsors .

BTW they don’t own the Duchys either

I can see why people they do own the crown estates - the name for one thing- and the Windsors like to propagate the idea that they are generously ‘giving’ us some revenue . When the opposite is true . They take .