The royal family’s finances are shrouded in mystery – it’s time to open the books

It’s tough being a republican politician in Australia, what with having to swear allegiance to the monarch when you take office. Lidia Thorpe, the senator who heckled the King in Canberra this week, has been wriggling around ever since, trying to find a convincing defence of her apparent hypocrisy.

It was a dramatic intervention, accusing the King of genocide and demanding that he return assorted bones and remains. “You are not my king,” she howled, with a final flourish before being bundled out: “F*** the colony!”

Challenged by a TV journalist about having sworn an oath in 2022 to Her Majesty’s “heirs and successors” she claimed she had actually proclaimed allegiance to her “hairs and successors”.

The TV footage of the event seemed to confirm this but she later backtracked when it seemed that her admission could be used to force her to resign as a senator. When it comes to challenging power there’s always the small print.

Republicanism back in the UK remains a lukewarm thing. A steady quarter of the population would prefer to have an elected head of state, while two-thirds of us have a more or less positive view of the institution of monarchy.

But if I were advising the royal family – as likely as being reincarnated as a spark plug – I would murmur a gentle warning about their staggering wealth. Having the press we do, it is not much written about and is little understood. But if Britain were ever to have a homegrown version of Lidia Thorpe, they would have a field day.

I had originally intended to write about a recent paper from the anti-monarchist group Republic, which argued the true cost of the monarchy is more than half a billion pounds. You can question some of the assumptions behind the report, but even His Majesty’s Times choked on some of the details and spluttered in an editorial: “The monarchy still retains the respect of most Britons but the age of blind deference is gone. Public money requires full public accountability”.

But then I stumbled on a more sober – and rather more deadly – piece of research published last month by the House of Commons Library. It is called Finances of the Monarchy and it is somewhat eye-popping.

Think of the royal family as, in some respects, like an SME, a small or medium-sized enterprise. At its heart, there are just seven working royals, plus four retirees who gallantly put in a shift from time to time.

Unlike an average SME, the infrastructure to keep this one on the road is considerable, approaching 1,200 employees, numerous premises and multiple revenue streams. Much of it is hidden in a way that would be unthinkable with any SME. And the sums of money the very top employees earn are astronomical.

This particular SME is officially financed through the sovereign grant, a funding formula, known as a “gold ratchet,” which ensures that the SME’s income can only ever go up. Last year, it shot up 53 per cent. You read that right.

The reason for the cash surge is that the grant is linked (thank you, George Osborne, in 2011) to profits from the crown estate. And the crown estate had a really good year because it owns our coastline (thank you Alec Douglas Home); the more wind farms we build, the more the royals rake it in. For the royals, tackling climate change is a gift that keeps giving.

Astonishingly, the royal spin doctors tried to have us believe that the sovereign grant “golden ratchet” would be more modest in future. But it took a short sharp intervention from no less a figure than former cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull to puncture that one: “I think it’s b*****ks,” he said to The Guardian. “It is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate how the thing works.”

But on top of that, the King trousers an eye-watering sum from the Duchy of Lancaster, an outfit dating back to 1265 which requires no actual work from the monarch. Like a 13th-century baron, he just pockets the proceeds – £29.6m last year. Yes, you read that right, too. Nearly £30m on top of the sovereign grant.

On top of that, the King gets a private income from investments, inherited wealth and income from estates such as Sandringham (where he owns some 300 houses) and Balmoral. These sums are not reported, nor is it known if he pays any tax on them, though he has let it be known that he has volunteered to pay tax on the Duchy wodge.

Then there is Prince William. How much do you think the deputy CEO of an SME should get? “More or less than the prime minister?” is the traditional question the headline writers, in other contexts, like to pose.

Way, way, way more is the answer. For William, in addition to whatever he gets from the sovereign grant for performing his modest duties (126 engagements in 2022, or just over two a week), there is the veritable gusher that is the Duchy of Cornwall (b 1337).

As with the Duchy of Lancaster, this requires little to no work from the beneficiary. By an accident of birth, he has acquired the right to pocket the income from 53,000 hectares of land across 20 counties, as well as forests rivers, quarries and coastline. Last year, they paid out Prince William £23.6. You read that right.

The Republic report has calculated that William’s personal income is six times the combined salaries of all the elected heads of state in Europe.

I am trying to think of any possible justification for paying a 42-year-old public servant more than £23m and of course, there is none. It’s a world of make-believe, a kind of Harry Potter theme park rather than anything real. If you question it, the whole edifice crumbles. We cannot, as the 19th-century constitutional theorist Walter Bagehot wrote, “let daylight in upon the magic”.

Shutter that daylight. Otherwise, we’d have to ask why the seven principal employees of this SME require all the homes listed in the House of Commons Library report. There are the nine occupied royal palaces, as well as Balmoral and Sandringham. And then there’s Frogmore Cottage, the Royal Lodge and Adelaide Cottage in Windsor Great Park. Bagshot Park, south of Windsor, the Castle of Mey, Dumfries House, Anmer Hall and a farmhouse in Zalanpatak, Romania. I make that 19 houses, castles or palaces. Some of them have dozens of rooms, others have hundreds.

Happily for the royal family, the House of Commons report into the royal finances has not, so far as I can tell, attracted much press attention. But the media could hardly avoid reporting on the huge leap in this year’s sovereign grant. The NBC headline read: “King Charles’ monarchy gets a $60m pay raise as the UK grapples with a cost of living crisis.” Which is not a great look.

The last truly outspoken anti-monarchist MP was a man called Willie Hamilton, who died in 2000. But one day, we will have our own Lidia Thorpe and once they switch on the daylight, the magic won’t look so magic.