What do you expect from our Royal Family

[Spectre8]

There were alot of good discussions and comments on my previous thread re. William missing the VJ day around the role and expectations of the Royal Family. I didn't want it to be a bashing thread to make personal attacks at William or Kate but well some comments were still made.

So its made me think there is still a very worthwhile discussion to be had about the future of the RF and their role. So lets try to keep it about that and not specifically about the person in that current role.

For me, if the next King wants a more private life, that his service and duty is not about the number of engagements he or the working royals do then its needs to be really articulated what their purpose is and 100% transparency of the sovereign grant, even a reduction of it since some of the money goes towards covering the cost of these engagments. I'd also like to see some of assets returned to us so we can monetise them to pay for their upkeep.

So there was a yacht?

And a fifth holiday in seven months?

Well, well.

thanks I was starting to wonder. wonder why she did that.

Where does the figure 12% come from?

I have linked before (not sure if it was this thread) to the parliamentary research briefing paper below which has a useful summary of the finances of the monarchy.

From the second paragraph:
Following the most recent review, the Sovereign Grant is set at 12% of Crown Estate profits.

Finances of the Monarchy 2025

Edit to add: from the same paragraph - the Sovereign Grant is due to increase by 53% in cash terms because the profits of the Crown Estate have increased significantly. The government has therefore profited much more (as it benefits from 88% of the Crown Estate profits).

I’m not sure she’s gone blonde from that picture - might just be a trick of the light.

Up until April 2024 it was 15%. It's been reduced to 12%

It is reviewed every 5 years

To add... and this is taken from dot.org

The calculation for the Sovereign Grant is reviewed every five years. The Sovereign Grant was originally calculated at 15% of the Crown Estate profits. But to support the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, the grant was increased in 2017/18 to 25% of profits (an additional 10% is to fund the Reservicing of Buckingham Palace over a period of 10 years), with the intention of returning to 15% in 2027/28.3 However review by the Royal Trustees concluded in 2023 that the percentage should be reduced to 12%. This was in part due to substantial projected increases in the Crown Estate’s future income from offshore wind fees from January 2023. This came into effect from April 2024. In addition, the remainder of the funding for the programmed reservicing of Buckingham Palace will see a temporary increase for 2025/26 and 2026/27. Another review will take place in 2026 to set the calculation for 2027/28 onwards once the reservicing is complete.

Let's hope the refurb of Buck House is completed by the next review... the Palace no one wants to live in!

You asked where the figure of 12% came from, implying that @PensionedCruiser was being inaccurate. I have shown you.

I just asked that's all. I wanted clarification.

Thanks for doing so

The cynic in me poses the question - apart from soft diplomacy, if they were all gone for good in the morning, would we even notice!

Why would we notice the absence of the “soft diplomacy”? How do we measure it?

Holiday rentals to tourists.

Well...there are 780 rooms there...

RF no bar charity sector and papers - head of state well yes - there a big constitutional hole that expects a head of state.

Parliament after gaining more power after civil war chose to have a monarch fill that gap and rules for who that is - act of succession - come via them and have been modified by parliament.

They could put a poltcial appointee in - but that will present issues or some one else - or we could paper over cracks as they turn up - but it would be an issue that needed handling.

it's why most shurg at whole system as it doesn't make a huge amount of sense to modern eyes but don't want to spend money or political capital getting rid of RF yet.

Apparently it's about 3 x the size of the Whitehouse which houses an executive President. They could make one wing a hotel for dignitaries/ keep the balcony bit for events etc and open up most of the rest of it and the gardens as a museum/ art gallery.

Not everything can be quantified.

The difference made to people’s lives, say, by having a dog or cat is real, but could it be statistically quantified?

Random thought on titles, if a royal is the Duke or Duchess of said County, they should live at least partly in that County and promote it and be part of that community so royals are less London centric and are spread about the country more. I think the Wales should have had a Welsh base and George like Charles should spend part of his Education there and learn the language, same with the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh they really should be based there and representing and promoting Edinburgh and Scotland. I do understand though that this could be very costly with security etc but I think it is something that could be explored, what’s the point of a location title if you don’t live or represent that area?

Only 18 percent of the Welsh speak Welsh.

My grandmother came to the US at age 15. Over the next 60 years she never learned English. She was actually very intelligent but had no gift for languages.

I studied Spanish, not my family's language, for many years but since I get moved around for my job, I'm never in predominantly Spanish neighborhoods for long.I also have to see the Spanish in my mind before I speak it, which I do to a certain extent with English. Learning a language is hard for me for that reason.

It might be better for George to learn Mandarin or Russian or Spanish for diplomacy purposes.

RF no bar charity sector

Royal charities tend to replicate already active sectors while royal patronages have been shown to have limited if any impact.

Only 18 percent of the Welsh speak Welsh.

And the actual Prince of Wales very expensively educated to learn, think and ponder his role for himself isn't one of them.

It's not like he does much else...

The city of York is not impressed with your suggestion!

😂 I clearly hadn’t thought it through! Think of the affect on house prices! 😂

Have been looking at the report for the Royal Foundation for 2024. There's so much there (bringing multinational companies together, involvement of foreign government departments) that really wouldn't happen without 'soft diplomacy'.

If dogs and cats were provided on the NHS at taxpayers expense, I would sure as hell want their benefits to be quantifiable!

How do you know?

Personal opinion - as most posts here