If the Queen can’t pay the bills, why not sell a palace or two?

It’s a bit rich that the public is paying £150m for repairs at Buckingham Palace when the Queen has so many valuable assets



Is the Queen so strapped for cash that she can’t afford the upkeep of her palaces? We now know, thanks to the publication of her official accounts, that Buckingham Palace – like that other palace across the park in Westminster – is crumbling, and as much as £150m will be needed from the public purse to repair its state rooms and install new wiring and plumbing.

To be fair to the Queen, she is hardly to blame that her official residence requires costly repairs. Buckingham Palace is over 300 years old, and the state rooms have not been decorated for more than half a century. The work has to be done – and, like the Palace of Westminster, the sooner it is started, the lower the cost. But if, as seems likely, she is forced to relocate to Windsor Castle while the builders are in, then maybe that would be the perfect time to consider more radical cost-cutting measures.

According to the most recent valuation, the Queen is worth about £340m. However, as with many of her aristocratic cousins, she is asset-rich but relatively income-poor. Much of her wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar, although she is rumoured to have a portfolio of shares in blue-chip companies which may be worth tens of millions of pounds.

But does our head of state really need two official residences in and around London? Since few royals have ever enjoyed living in Buckingham Palace (Prince Philip dragged his feet about moving in after George VI died and another family member likened the palace “to living in the middle of a traffic roundabout”), would it not make more sense to turn Windsor into her main residence?

The palace could then be transformed into a Louvre-type museum so that the paying public could view the treasures of the royal collection all year round.

But why stop at the official residences? Does the sovereign require two private palaces in the country? Balmoral and Sandringham have been valued at more than £60m, but any prospective buyer might have to pay double that amount when the royal cachet is factored in. Both estates haemorrhage money in overheads. Indeed, Edward VIII was so worried about Sandringham’s high running costs that he began the process of selling it off.

Balmoral requires more than £3m a year to run, although the Queen does claw back some revenue by renting out cottages on the estate at £690 a week. The Sandringham estate, with its more arable soil, is better placed to offset its running costs through land rental as well as the leasing of game-shooting rights, but it remains a drain on resources. If one estate had to go, the sensible solution would be to hand over Balmoral to the National Trust or some such public body – much in the same way that Edward VII transferred Osborne House to the nation after the death of Queen Victoria.

The Queen’s private wealth is rarely discussed. Much the same was true of the Queen Mother’s finances, when a blind eye was turned to her hefty overdraft at Coutts bank and the generous public subsidy she received from the civil list. But given the amount the Queen receives from the public purse, it is reasonable to expect more transparency about her finances.

The Queen owns a valuable art collection worth millions (the crown jewels, the royal collection and the official residences are state treasures, and do not figure in her private wealth) and she also inherited her mother’s paintings and jewellery, with an estimated value of £60m. In addition, she inherited from her father George VI the royal philatelic collection, the world’s most comprehensive collection of Commonwealth postage stamps – which is worth up to £100m.

Last year she received around £13.3m from the Duchy of Lancaster, mainly for her non-head of state expenditure. Apparently some of this money goes to support junior members of the royal family but surely part of it could also be used to help maintain her official residences.

The existing funding arrangement – the sovereign grant – is already more than generous. Providing the Queen with 15% of the annual profits from the crown estate, it has a guaranteed floor but no ceiling. It increased from £31m in its first year, 2012-13, to £40m today. The then Labour MP Ian Davidson was spot on when he warned in 2011 that it could become a “golden ratchet”.

Despite his old fogey image, Prince Charles is rumoured to favour some streamlining of the official residences, but given his sentimental attachment to Balmoral, it is hard to imagine him disposing of the Highland estate, and he is thought to have a soft spot for Sandringham too. So, we might have to wait another generation for a new broom – provided William is not too old and set in his ways when he eventually ascends to the throne.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/02/queen-buckingham-palace-public-150m-repair-bill

Jeremy Hunt has said that any presciption over £20 is going to be stamped 'Paid for by the British Taxpayer' Perhaps that phrase could be worked into the stone when they do up the Palace, and how about stamping on the heads of MPs?

Couldn't she rent out some rooms to people? What with sky high rent costs in London it would bring in a fortune.

People are being charged more for a having an extra bedroom that they supposedly don't need so why not?

Makes sense to me. Extra if butler included to put the paste on the toothbrush

sassy wrote:It’s a bit rich that the public is paying £150m for repairs at Buckingham Palace when the Queen has so many valuable assets



Is the Queen so strapped for cash that she can’t afford the upkeep of her palaces? We now know, thanks to the publication of her official accounts, that Buckingham Palace – like that other palace across the park in Westminster – is crumbling, and as much as £150m will be needed from the public purse to repair its state rooms and install new wiring and plumbing.

To be fair to the Queen, she is hardly to blame that her official residence requires costly repairs. Buckingham Palace is over 300 years old, and the state rooms have not been decorated for more than half a century. The work has to be done – and, like the Palace of Westminster, the sooner it is started, the lower the cost. But if, as seems likely, she is forced to relocate to Windsor Castle while the builders are in, then maybe that would be the perfect time to consider more radical cost-cutting measures.

According to the most recent valuation, the Queen is worth about £340m. However, as with many of her aristocratic cousins, she is asset-rich but relatively income-poor. Much of her wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar, although she is rumoured to have a portfolio of shares in blue-chip companies which may be worth tens of millions of pounds.

But does our head of state really need two official residences in and around London? Since few royals have ever enjoyed living in Buckingham Palace (Prince Philip dragged his feet about moving in after George VI died and another family member likened the palace “to living in the middle of a traffic roundabout”), would it not make more sense to turn Windsor into her main residence?

The palace could then be transformed into a Louvre-type museum so that the paying public could view the treasures of the royal collection all year round.

But why stop at the official residences? Does the sovereign require two private palaces in the country? Balmoral and Sandringham have been valued at more than £60m, but any prospective buyer might have to pay double that amount when the royal cachet is factored in. Both estates haemorrhage money in overheads. Indeed, Edward VIII was so worried about Sandringham’s high running costs that he began the process of selling it off.

Balmoral requires more than £3m a year to run, although the Queen does claw back some revenue by renting out cottages on the estate at £690 a week. The Sandringham estate, with its more arable soil, is better placed to offset its running costs through land rental as well as the leasing of game-shooting rights, but it remains a drain on resources. If one estate had to go, the sensible solution would be to hand over Balmoral to the National Trust or some such public body – much in the same way that Edward VII transferred Osborne House to the nation after the death of Queen Victoria.

The Queen’s private wealth is rarely discussed. Much the same was true of the Queen Mother’s finances, when a blind eye was turned to her hefty overdraft at Coutts bank and the generous public subsidy she received from the civil list. But given the amount the Queen receives from the public purse, it is reasonable to expect more transparency about her finances.

The Queen owns a valuable art collection worth millions (the crown jewels, the royal collection and the official residences are state treasures, and do not figure in her private wealth) and she also inherited her mother’s paintings and jewellery, with an estimated value of £60m. In addition, she inherited from her father George VI the royal philatelic collection, the world’s most comprehensive collection of Commonwealth postage stamps – which is worth up to £100m.

Last year she received around £13.3m from the Duchy of Lancaster, mainly for her non-head of state expenditure. Apparently some of this money goes to support junior members of the royal family but surely part of it could also be used to help maintain her official residences.

The existing funding arrangement – the sovereign grant – is already more than generous. Providing the Queen with 15% of the annual profits from the crown estate, it has a guaranteed floor but no ceiling. It increased from £31m in its first year, 2012-13, to £40m today. The then Labour MP Ian Davidson was spot on when he warned in 2011 that it could become a “golden ratchet”.

Despite his old fogey image, Prince Charles is rumoured to favour some streamlining of the official residences, but given his sentimental attachment to Balmoral, it is hard to imagine him disposing of the Highland estate, and he is thought to have a soft spot for Sandringham too. So, we might have to wait another generation for a new broom – provided William is not too old and set in his ways when he eventually ascends to the throne.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/02/queen-buckingham-palace-public-150m-repair-bill

Jeremy Hunt has said that any presciption over £20 is going to be stamped 'Paid for by the British Taxpayer'   Perhaps that phrase could be worked into the stone when they do up the Palace, and how about stamping on the heads of MPs?

i disagree with you on this she does`nt own Buckingham palace its like the council asking you to foot the bills for repair of a home you rent

and it pales in comparison to the cost of repairing the HOC

korban dallas wrote:

sassy wrote:It’s a bit rich that the public is paying £150m for repairs at Buckingham Palace when the Queen has so many valuable assets



Is the Queen so strapped for cash that she can’t afford the upkeep of her palaces? We now know, thanks to the publication of her official accounts, that Buckingham Palace – like that other palace across the park in Westminster – is crumbling, and as much as £150m will be needed from the public purse to repair its state rooms and install new wiring and plumbing.

To be fair to the Queen, she is hardly to blame that her official residence requires costly repairs. Buckingham Palace is over 300 years old, and the state rooms have not been decorated for more than half a century. The work has to be done – and, like the Palace of Westminster, the sooner it is started, the lower the cost. But if, as seems likely, she is forced to relocate to Windsor Castle while the builders are in, then maybe that would be the perfect time to consider more radical cost-cutting measures.

According to the most recent valuation, the Queen is worth about £340m. However, as with many of her aristocratic cousins, she is asset-rich but relatively income-poor. Much of her wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar, although she is rumoured to have a portfolio of shares in blue-chip companies which may be worth tens of millions of pounds.

But does our head of state really need two official residences in and around London? Since few royals have ever enjoyed living in Buckingham Palace (Prince Philip dragged his feet about moving in after George VI died and another family member likened the palace “to living in the middle of a traffic roundabout”), would it not make more sense to turn Windsor into her main residence?

The palace could then be transformed into a Louvre-type museum so that the paying public could view the treasures of the royal collection all year round.

But why stop at the official residences? Does the sovereign require two private palaces in the country? Balmoral and Sandringham have been valued at more than £60m, but any prospective buyer might have to pay double that amount when the royal cachet is factored in. Both estates haemorrhage money in overheads. Indeed, Edward VIII was so worried about Sandringham’s high running costs that he began the process of selling it off.

Balmoral requires more than £3m a year to run, although the Queen does claw back some revenue by renting out cottages on the estate at £690 a week. The Sandringham estate, with its more arable soil, is better placed to offset its running costs through land rental as well as the leasing of game-shooting rights, but it remains a drain on resources. If one estate had to go, the sensible solution would be to hand over Balmoral to the National Trust or some such public body – much in the same way that Edward VII transferred Osborne House to the nation after the death of Queen Victoria.

The Queen’s private wealth is rarely discussed. Much the same was true of the Queen Mother’s finances, when a blind eye was turned to her hefty overdraft at Coutts bank and the generous public subsidy she received from the civil list. But given the amount the Queen receives from the public purse, it is reasonable to expect more transparency about her finances.

The Queen owns a valuable art collection worth millions (the crown jewels, the royal collection and the official residences are state treasures, and do not figure in her private wealth) and she also inherited her mother’s paintings and jewellery, with an estimated value of £60m. In addition, she inherited from her father George VI the royal philatelic collection, the world’s most comprehensive collection of Commonwealth postage stamps – which is worth up to £100m.

Last year she received around £13.3m from the Duchy of Lancaster, mainly for her non-head of state expenditure. Apparently some of this money goes to support junior members of the royal family but surely part of it could also be used to help maintain her official residences.

The existing funding arrangement – the sovereign grant – is already more than generous. Providing the Queen with 15% of the annual profits from the crown estate, it has a guaranteed floor but no ceiling. It increased from £31m in its first year, 2012-13, to £40m today. The then Labour MP Ian Davidson was spot on when he warned in 2011 that it could become a “golden ratchet”.

Despite his old fogey image, Prince Charles is rumoured to favour some streamlining of the official residences, but given his sentimental attachment to Balmoral, it is hard to imagine him disposing of the Highland estate, and he is thought to have a soft spot for Sandringham too. So, we might have to wait another generation for a new broom – provided William is not too old and set in his ways when he eventually ascends to the throne.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/02/queen-buckingham-palace-public-150m-repair-bill

Jeremy Hunt has said that any presciption over £20 is going to be stamped 'Paid for by the British Taxpayer'   Perhaps that phrase could be worked into the stone when they do up the Palace, and how about stamping on the heads of MPs?

i disagree with you on this she does`nt own Buckingham palace its like the council asking you to foot the bills for repair of a home you rent

and it pales in comparison to the cost of repairing the  HOC  

That's true KD. It's part of the Crown Estate of the UK. Hunt should do as he is doing with any other part of what the public ownes that needs money and privatise it.

Irn Bru wrote:

korban dallas wrote:
i disagree with you on this she does`nt own Buckingham palace its like the council asking you to foot the bills for repair of a home you rent

and it pales in comparison to the cost of repairing the  HOC  

That's true KD. It's part of the Crown Estate of the UK. Hunt should do as he is doing with any other part of what the public ownes that needs money and privatise it.

i have to admit i am very pro the royal family
however i think if the HOC is to be repaired then that are plenty of royal estates that could house Mp`s for the work to be carried out ....but please not balmoral as she does actually own that one