Sovereign Grant

Sovereign Grant Act 2011
The Act makes changes to the way in which the monarchy is funded. It replaces the Civil List and other grants that support the Queen’s official duties with a new Sovereign Grant, based on a percentage of the profits of the Crown Estate. The new grant is designed to deliver at first a broadly similar level of finance in cash terms to what is available at present. There are mechanisms for adjusting the level in future, and for using any significant surplus as a means to reduce the grant. The Sovereign Grant is intended to be a typical government grant that will lead to the royal finances being audited by the National Audit Office, and subjected to full parliamentary scrutiny.
Considered by	Parliament of the United Kingdom
Date of Royal Assent	18 October 2011
Legislative history
Introduced by	Justine Greening and Lord Sassoon
First reading	30 June 2011
Second reading	14 July 2011
Third reading	14 July 2011
Status: In force

The Sovereign Grant Act 2011 (c. 15) is the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which introduced the Sovereign Grant, the payment which is paid annually to the Monarch by the Government. It was the biggest reform to the finances of the British Royal Family since the inception of the Civil List in 1760.

In 1760 King George III agreed with Parliament that he was no longer to govern in person, and therefore was no longer entitled to income from the Crown Estate, which for 700 years had always been used for the administration of the state. Parliament granted a fixed annual income from the Civil List. The resulting system required the annual State expenditure on the Monarchy to be decided by the Treasury and presented to House of Commons. Prior to abolition, the Civil List was fixed at £7.9 million annually for the decade 2001-10, the same amount as in 1991, with the reserve being consumed over the decade. In 2011 the Civil List was raised to £13.7 million.

There were four funding sources:

The Act came into force on 1 April 2012 and changed the arrangements for the funding of The Queen’s Official Duties. The Act consolidated all four funding sources into a single payment, called the Sovereign Grant. The current system is intended to be a more permanent arrangement than the previous one, which was reign-specific.

The Sovereign Grant is paid annually by the treasury at a value indexed as a percentage of the Government's revenues from the State owned Crown Estate and other revenues in the financial year two years earlier. It is based on an index percentage which was set at 15% and this is reviewed every five years by the Royal Trustees (the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse).

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