William to sell off parts of Duchy of Cornwall "for positive impact"

[BasiliskStare]

On the face of it (& I have read the article once so reserve the right to change my mind , be persuaded by those more knowledgeable than me or by other arguments ) this looks like a good thing - or maybe a good start. I'm sure W can manage nicely with the income from 80% of. £1bn Duchy 😊

I don't think this excuses him from not being transparent about finances , but am I being naive to think this is edging towards a good thing? I know there is an argument the Duchy is ill-gotten gains he shouldn't have in the first place. I'm quite pleased to see affordable housing in London referred to , which having a DS who lives in London , I'm very aware of. That's obviously personal to me though.

Anyway - for what it's worth - here's the article

archive.ph/qi1V9

Last civil list in 2011 - approx 8 million

Sovereign grant 2026/27 - approx 137.9 million
( security costs never revealed and not included)

Draw your own conclusions

The sovereign grant introduced by the Tories in 2011 after years of campaigning by Elizabeth and Charles , stopped the regular debates over royal funding , ensured the amount the Windsors take from the taxpayer can never go down and left the allocation of the money up to the Windsors.

Any government keen to reform the corruption of Windsor greed could start right there - scrap the sovereign grant and return to how things were managed under the civil list.

Disagree - the civil list wasn’t audited for expenditure - the SG is.

With the civil list payments the individuals paid could just pocket and keep any funds left over at the end of the year - that doesn’t happen with the SG.

The majority of payments for the SG goes on staff wages and pensions for the official state residences and buildings. The next highest expenditure is for the upkeep of these buildings which belong to the state not the royal family.

There is government oversight of these expenditures.

Payments to working royals for their living expenses which used to be a civil list payment now come from the King’s Duchy of Lancaster.

Also you continue to repeat this false statement that the Sovereign Grant can never go down which is a misinterpretation of how it was set up.

It was a safeguard to make sure that if the Crown Estate profits dropped so significantly that the percentage paid into the Sovereign Grant was too low to cover expenses for the year then the amount could be made up to cover the short fall.

In practice, any money left over at the end of the year goes into a reserve fund. If that reserve fund is consistently topped out the SG percentage will be reduced.

I get that historically the Crown Estate came from the monarchy and that the Sovereign Grant is only a percentage of its profits. But in practice today, it’s still a publicly controlled asset generating revenue that goes to the Treasury, with a portion ring‑fenced to fund the monarchy rather than all of it going into general government spending.

So while William paying 'market rent' sounds like he’s being treated like anyone else, it’s still money going into a system that partly funds the institution he belongs to. The issue isn’t whether it’s audited or historically justified it’s whether that structure is still appropriate now and quite frankly it isn't and that matters more if the direction of travel as signposted by him is towards a smaller or less active monarchy. If fewer official duties are being carried out, it raises a fair question about whether a fixed share of Crown Estate profits should still be ring‑fenced for it at all

No, because it’s not on the coast. Power stations have to be on the coast for the huge amount of seawater they use to cool the turbines.

But, I do get the sentiment.

I was joking....

But @wordler - this amounts to the same thing .I was aware of the folderol fiddling around to ‘top it up’ - it ensures that the Windsors do not ever suffer a drop in take from the tax payer.
As with the ‘reserve fund’ - the Windsor savings account we all pay into - no doubt it is all spent if it ever threatened to reach 50 %

The Windsor wealth has ballooned in the last decade and there is no denying the fact. Pure greed .

Sovereign grant 2026/27 - approx 137.9 million

In other words
Government income from Crown Estates 1149 million
Government allocation for Head of State official duties 137.9 million

The sovereign grant ... stopped the regular debates over royal funding

Under the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, the Sovereign Grant must be debated at accession of the new monarch and at least every 5 years.
It could obviously be debated more frequently should the government wish.

ensured the amount the Windsors take from the taxpayer can never go down

Not quite correct. There is a function for the annual amount to be reduced by the Trustees if the Sovereign Grant Reserve has increased.

and left the allocation of the money up to the Windsors.

The percentage to be used in calculating the amount is determined during the parliamentary debates above (a reduction can be passed without full debate).
The annual value must be calculated by the Royal Trustees (PM, Chancellor of Exchequer & Keeper of Privy Purse) yearly.

It is audited by the National Audit Office like any other government department (made easier now that it is one source - prior to the SG Act aspects of Royal household funding were overseen by Treasury, Dept of Culture, Media and Sport, Dept for Transport & Ministry of Defence).

The Sovereign Grant annual accounts are publicly available.

I understand that from your position of a republican that any money spend on anything royal adjacent is repugnant to you.

I do think that money should be ringfenced for the upkeep of our state assets (the buildings, Art, historical archives etc) and for the staff who work in them.

I’m fairly happy with a constitutional monarchy so I don’t mind the SG paying for the official travel expenses.

I’m also fairly happy with the current working royals and the job they are doing.

I might feel very different if the prospect was Harry as heir and I definitely would feel
differently if Andrew was monarch or heir.

Andrew = the Windsors.

They all knew. Several of them ( we aren’t allowed to know who) chipped in to pay off Andrew’s accusor . Epstein was emailing the palace directly to complain about about the wording of palace statements !

Oh and remember the palace officially calling Virginia Guiffre a liar ? They all knew .

It's certainly reasonable for there to be a debate, @LipglossAndLies.

My only intent in posting is that the debate is based on fact rather than fiction, hence repeatedly posting source material in these threads.

For example, in your post, there isn't a 'fixed share' of the Crown Estate profits ring-fenced.
The share is decided at minimum every 5 years, and at accession (and could be more frequently if the government wished).
The percentage was reduced from 25% to 12% at accession.

(The reduction was to take account of the increase in profitability of the Crown Estates because of the wind-farms; one example of appropriate changes when necessary.)

You have provided me with that link many times now.

Thank you once more!

If the reserve fund reaches 50 % of the sovereign grant then a mechanism is set in place to reduce the grant .
That is what @bluegreygreen is referring to . All the Windsors have to do is spend what they are given and there is no reduction at all. Nice set up .

No - I mean that Charles bought and sold both rural and non-rural Duchy property. The Duchy owns property in 9 counties plus other random places. Some is industrial/retail. For example Charles bought a B&Q warehouse in Milton Keynes and William sold it. Do you object to these types of properties being sold? He bought 2 large estates in Herefordshire in 1991 and 2000 but sold farmland in Kent in 2014.

Do you object for example if William sells the Reading Holiday Inn? Or the Waitrose Distribution Centre in Milton Keynes?

It would be interesting to see the lease for Dartmoor Prison. Does Prince William own the prison buildings or just the land? I don't live in the UK but radon is a common problem where I live and it can be effectively remediated with a ventilation/fan system installed. Takes about a day to install at a residential house. But it could be the Prison Service prefer to pay the lease out than have the work done.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1219338/sovereign-grant-value-uk/?srsltid=AfmBOopmsLJheIqHsgZbhdkm3h8QCK4wi9vpqWcaGv4UD96ecL7jGZm-

This article shows a graph from 2012 (£29M SG) to 2025 (£132M)

Even during the Covid years when they weren't working it still increased. Even when Harry and Meghan left, and Andrew was sidelined, it still went up. And it has reached this huge level of £132M because Crown Estate profits have increased... all for less working Royals which means less staff.

Yes I know about BP renovations, we better see a huge drop soon because they are nearing completion. And yes, I know successive governments are so lily livered they won't address anything to do with the Royals.

Let's see how the Oversight of the Crown properties pans out, I don't hold out much hope.

Yes but it’s audited so if there’s suddenly some extra unusual spending activity to try to do that then it’s up to the government to catch that and deal with it.

The money has very specific uses - Charles can’t suddenly decide he wants to spend it on his personal needs.

@lunde - are you a uk citizen/ passport holder ?

Btw I object to the Duchies full stop . They are a rip off . Both should be part of the crown estate .

Tell that to Charles when he tried to get his then girlfriend Camilla’s household expenses through as tax exempt lol
( I know an MP caught it )

Again - apart from travel expenses for official engagements the SG doesn’t pay for the working royals personal needs so it’s not relevant how many working royals there are - the official state buildings and staffing of those remain the same.

Charles’ spending from the then Duchy of Cornwall and now Lancaster presumably goes down when he stops funding family members.

So the system worked then?

Oh of course you are referring to fro the crown estate . It is fully audited as it’s owned by the state

The incident I was referring was the duchy of Cornwall ( surprise surprise ) Though there are allegations that the duchy of Lancaster money was used to pay off Virginia Guiffre .

Yes - UK citizen and born in UK

Charles can’t suddenly decide he wants to spend it on his personal needs.

No need, articles in last day or two saying his wealth has increased by £40million in a year. I have to say, I caught a small bit of the King's address to parliament when it came up on a feed. To see him sat there with a crown that jewellery experts have valued at between 3 and 5 billion, to be talking about child poverty is really obscene.

Yes, before anyone says, I know he is only setting out the government objectives but I find the whole thing yuk

@wordler - yes it was a select committee though

They asked for more detail and transparency and answer came there none .

Lets hope the select committee examining the peppercorn rents is more successful

I'm sorry 😳

Hopefully it will be helpful to someone else.