Pay Cut For Queen Of England
Posted on 27 June 2010 by LynThomas in Society
The Queen is expected to share some of the British public’s pain from the toughest spending cuts in decades, after the finance minister said he would freeze her annual state allowance this year.
In an emergency budget statement, Chancellor George Osborne said the monarch had given her ‘full agreement’ to a one-year cap on her £7.9 million ($16.6 million) payment.
The Queen has not had a pay rise in 20 years and newspaper reports suggest her courtiers are lobbying the new government to raise her allowance, for performing public duties.
“Because of inflation, the annual payment is today worth only a quarter of what it was 20 years ago,” Osborne said. “This has required careful management.”
The Queen’s allowance is due for its 10-yearly review this year. The timing is unfortunate, given the poor state of the public finances and the fragile economic recovery.
The Daily Telegraph reported that the current payment was falling £7 million short of meeting the annual cost of performing the monarch’s public duties.
The Queen and her husband Prince Philip are the only royals to receive payment from the Civil List. The bulk of it goes towards paying staff, with the rest spent on things like stationery, laundry and official functions such as garden parties.
Despite her many historic palaces packed with priceless artworks and the pricelesss crown jewels, Britain’s third-longest serving monarch has a reputation for frugality. She is reported to turn off lights in empty rooms and asks chefs to reuse leftover food.
The Queen and her husband Prince Philip are the only royals to receive payment from the Civil List. The bulk of it goes towards paying staff, with the rest spent on things like stationery, laundry and official functions such as garden parties.
The first allowance was set in 1689 at £1.2 million, although that included money for the military.
The government also said the queen’s spending will now be scrutinized by the National Audit Office, the agency that pores over the accounts of government departments.
Though nine of the world’s fifty richest people are women, the Queen is not listed among them.
Top of the list of women is Alice Walton, 56, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, worth roughly $20.7 billion. Liliane Bettencourt, of L’Oreal, comes second, with $20 billion.
Since the reign of King Goerge III, when a new monarch ascends the throne, they sign a lease to the government, handing control of the £7billion pound ($14.7 billion) portfolio over to the government. The Crown estate is managed by an independent body, on behalf of the government.
Should the new monarch chose not to do sign the lease, the monarch would regain control of the crown portfolio and would be removed from the civil list payments.
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