A Reassuring Look at the Buckingham Palace Refurbishments (2016)
Originally published in 2016, in the Intern Lunch
A lion’s share of the indignation regarding the proposed refurbishments to Buckingham Palace that I’ve encountered, have seemed to me to be based on misinformation. Therefore, I feel people are taking the proposal as being more unfair than it is and are left feeling hard done by. My intended purpose for this article is to clarify aspects of the proposal that have been reported misleadingly. And I do so, not through any affection I have towards the Monarchy, but through a desire to reassure people who think the public are getting a raw deal.
It is no secret that some of the government’s proposed budget cuts and allocations in recent years have been grossly unfair: the Bedroom Tax, a £4 billion cut to disability benefits and the recent proposal to abolish grants for student nurses to name a few. So when it was reported that one of the most privileged families in the world were using taxpayer’s money to renovate one of their most grandiose residences, it is understandable that people assumed it was just as unfair as it seemed.
Unfortunately, the media’s reporting of the refurbishments has been a classic example of its readiness to twist or omit information for the sake of attention-grabbing. They don’t let truth get in the way of a good story. As such, they have made it seem like some rich old lady who owns half the world and all the swans is getting 66% more than usual of the taxpayer’s hard-earned cash to get new gold staircases and ivory statues. However, most of this is either wrong or misleading (although the Queen does own all the swans in Britain… and all the dolphins).
Firstly, the refurbishments are not luxurious ones. The money is going towards maintenance work i.e. replacing cables, pipes, wires and boilers to prevent fires and floods. It is not going towards increasing the luxury in which the royals live, but their safety. And unless you’re David Icke, you will agree that the royals are human and as such they deserve to live in safety. I think we can also agree that from an economic standpoint, maintaining Buckingham Palace for as long as possible is highly beneficial. It brings in huge amounts of profit through tourism, profit which is rising from year to year. So the longer the palace is maintained, the longer the economy will receive this extra bonus.
This leads onto my next point: although it is technically taxpayer funds that are being allocated towards the refurbishments, it is not money raised through taxing the general public i.e. it isn’t money that you or your family have contributed. Every year the land owned by the royals (called the Crown Estate) makes a certain amount of profit through visits from the public. This profit is given to the Treasury, then a certain percentage (usually 15%) called the Sovereign Grant, is given back. This grant is given to the royals so they can host a multitude of diplomatic affairs, receiving heads of states, throwing awards ceremonies, and the like (and of course, live lavish lives).
The Sovereign grant is increasing for the next 10 years to fund the £369m for the refurbishments. This is where the claim that taxpayers are paying for it all has come from. But, the fact of the matter is that, although the money would otherwise be spent in the public sector, it is not money that has been raised by taxing the public. It is money raised by the Monarchy, which they give to the state and the state gives back.
The final thing I want to clear up is a statistic which is wildly misleading that I keep seeing over and over again. This is that the sovereign grant is increasing by 66%. It isn’t. The grant is increasing from 15% of the Crown Estate to 25%, a 10% increase. As 66% of 15 is 10, the grant is rising by 66% of its original value. That is where the figure has come from. However, the papers make it seem as though the grant is rising 66% in total, from 15% to 81%. So, although most papers reported the estimated total cost correctly, they wildly misinformed on how much of an increase this is from the norm.
But this is where the most contentious element lies: the norm. It is taken for granted that Britain has one family who will be granted luxury in perpetuity as a birth right. And yet we become uncomfortable when their funds increase, even when their estate still profits the Treasury. Perhaps this is because, despite the benefits the Monarchy brings us and despite them being a bedrock of British identity, when we are invited to consider the principle of their eternal privilege, we are uncomfortable with it.
To conclude: the Palace contributes a decent whack of money to the Treasury and is now getting a slightly higher percentage of that money back than usual, to ensure that it keeps existing and therefore keeps contributing money. If you are uncomfortable with this then you might in fact be uncomfortable with the monarchy in the first place.
