Queen’s real wealth is well-kept secret

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 11

Queen’s real wealth is well-kept secret

(By

GILLIAN FRANKS)

AH her life, the Queen has been shielded from money, and what it can buy. She signs no cheques—they would be snapped up by collectors —and she is perhaps the only woman in the world who is unable to jingle a few coins in her purse when she goes shopping. She has little idea of the current prices of household commodities; she has never, of course, taken a wire basket around a supermarket, as Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Kent do, and it is no secret that she envies than such excursions. When the Queen does go to the shops, it is once a month to two of London’s largest department stores. She arrives at the back door half an hour before they open to the public and walks round with the manager. Stores staff have been given strict instructions to pretend the Queen is not in the shop, and not to disclose to anyone what she decides to buy. Secrecy the key Indeed, secrecy is the key ingredient of the Royal finances. Not even the British Parliament knows how much money the Queen has and what she does with it apart from her £475,000 a year allowance from the State. The Duke of Edinburgh has said that the Royal Family needs more money —that after 18 years on the same allowance, it is impossible to cut any more comers. Even that, cautious financial authority the “Economist” has said that the monarchy’s needs must be reassessed. But it added: “Perhaps the ensuing debate would be better informed if the size of the Sovereign’s tax-free private fortunes were known.”

When the Queen’s financial plight was first discussed in Parliament in November 1969, several M.P.s remarked that if the Royal Family was a firm—as King George VI described it—then it was about time the nation saw the balance sheet. Not published In fact that balance sheet is perhaps the closest Royal secret. The latest estimate of the Queen’s private fortune, made by the Bow Group of radical Conservatives, puts it at £6O million—and this, they say, is an “astonishingly modest estimate.” Royal wills might have given a clue to past tax-free inheritances. But Royal wills are never published. A good idea of the monarch’s personal fortune could be gained from details of death duties paid. But monarchs don’t pay death duties. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said he could not “hazard a guess at Her Majesty’s private income.” The Inland Revenue Department was equally inscrutable. “Tax paid on private income,” said an official, “is a matter for the Queen.” The Queen is not obliged to pay . customs duties, but in 1901, Edward VII decided to do so, and other monarchs have continued the practice, although no duty is paid on official gifts given to members of the Royal family during tours abroad. Stocks and shares Whether the Queen’s private income will come under the scrutiny of the Select Committee, to be set up some time in the life of the present British Parliament to study the Royal finances, is a matter of conjecture. It is known that a considerable amount of the Queen’s personal money several million at least is invested in stocks and shares aud real estate. This is administered by her

advisers a committee of leading financiers, and representatives of her bankers, Coutts and Company who' meet at least once a month in a suite of offices overlooking Buckingham Palace. The Queen herself, while intensely concerned in maintaining the value of Royal investments, is not particularly interested in money for its own sake. Indeed, her lack of experience in handling cash has on several occasions caused her some embarrassment. No work Once, for instance, when she ran a stall in aid of church funds at Balmoral, simple transactions, such as giving change from a pound note for a seven-shilling article, seemed to confuse her, and she had to call on a lady-in-waiting for help. She never sees a penny of the State allowance total ling over £600,000 a year, with the revenue from the Duchy of Lancaster. AU day-to-day transactions are handled by Lord Tryon, Keeper of the Privy Purse. Where this money—provided by the State goes, is also a secret to a great extent. Periodic economy campaigns have weeded out a lot of the sinecures which once abounded in the Royal household, but there are still thought to be at least 100 jobs which carry salaries, albeit small ones, but no work. It’s a long time, for instance, since the Constable of the Royal Palaces was called upon to eam his yearly fee for “searching the Royal bedchamber and during the months from November to March warming the monarch’s bed by lying therein before the monarch retires.” Nor is there much work for the Master of the Bounties, whose one duty is to

administer a charity instituted by Queen Victoria under which money was paid to the parents of triplets. The present Queen • disc- ’mued the practice in 1957. More to spend "We are not able to give precise details of duties carried out by the Queen’s servants, or what they eam,” say Buckingham Palace. “This is a domestic matter.” What is known is that the present Queen is by no means the first monarch to have difficulty in making ends meet. The Royal budget never balanced in the last few years of her .father’s reign. In 1951, for instance, there was a deficit of over £40,000. This was met partly from the Privy Purse, and partly from the King’s private funds. But in fact previous monarchs had more to spend than the present one has. The Civil List of George VI, not including the supplementary provision was £410,000; George V’s was £470,000, again not including the supplementary provision. Red rose And in those days money was worth far more than it is now investigating the Royal revenues can be a strange and often surrealistic business. There is no doubt that the Queen’s finances could be greatly improved if tradition allowed her to charge a realistic rent for , some of the imposing houses she owns. For instance, the Duke of Argyll holds Dunoon Castle in exchange for one red rose a year. Blenheim Palace costs the Duke of Marlborough a silk flag; and Statfield Saye is rented to the Duke of Wellington in return for a yearly fleur-de-iis.

These may look very nice in the guard chamber at Windsor, but they don’t do much to bolster up the sagging Royal finances. Aluminium blankets “Keep the patient warm” is a basic first-aid instruction, and a new blanket , for this is an insulating sheet of aluminium foil made by the British firm Sun Engineering Ltd. It made news a little while ago for wrapping up premature babies to keep them warm immediately after birth. Now sheets large enough to wrap a man in are being produced for accident casualties. This super insulation sheet of very fine-gauge aluminium is tough and can be used over and over again because it does not tear easily. It is waterproof, and a sheet can be packed into a cigarette packet. The inside sheet is coloured silver, and keeps the patient warm by reflecting back the body’s own heat. The Outside is coloured gold, which is well visible against most backgrounds, as for instance the sea and the snow. Each sheet costs just under £2 (less if you buy in quantity), so it is cheaper than some woollen blankets, as well as being warmer.

Describing the sheets, the 8.8. C. World Service programme, New Ideas, noted how useful they would be in disaster areas, where there is often a sudden need for thousands of blankets. .U'