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King Charles says public, not royals, should benefit from wind farm profits

Updated January 19, 2023 at 1:12 p.m. EST|Published January 19, 2023 at 10:33 a.m. EST
Britain's King Charles III meets with hardship-support groups during a visit to a new “community shed” in Aboyne, Scotland, on Jan. 12. (Andrew Milligan/Reuters)
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LONDON — Amid a deepening cost-of-living crisis in Britain, King Charles III announced that an expected surge in profits from wind farm deals that could have boosted the royal coffers should instead be spent on the public.

The move may help burnish the new king’s reputation and is line with his first Christmas Day broadcast, in which he recognized people struggling to “pay their bills and keep their families fed and warm.” It also offers a bit of boosterism for Britain’s renewable energy industry, from a longtime climate crusader who has tempered his activism since becoming king.

But royal critics charged that he has simply read the writing on the wall and is trying to generate good publicity ahead of a government review of royal household finances.

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On Thursday, a spokesperson said Buckingham Palace had written to the British government to “share the king’s wish” that the expected windfall be redirected “for the wider public good.”

The palace asked the prime minister and chancellor to propose an “appropriate reduction in the Crown Estate surplus that funds the Sovereign Grant,” the spokesperson said.

The statement came on the same day that the Crown Estate, the organization that manages the vast royal property portfolio, announced the signing of six new wind farm deals that it says will generate power for an estimated 7 million homes by 2030. The BBC reported that the leasing arrangements will generate 1 billion pounds ($1.2 billion) per year for at least three years.

Britain is a world leader in offshore wind energy. But to understand how that can impact the king, it’s necessary to dive into the complicated world of royal finances.

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The royals receive a taxpayer-funded “Sovereign Grant,” a sum that’s used to cover the operating costs of the royal household, paying for things such as staff salaries, garden parties, property maintenance and travel.

The amount set for 2021 to 2022 was 86.3 million pounds ($107 million).

That figure isn’t plucked from the air. It’s calculated as a proportion of profits from the Crown Estate, an independently-run company that manages the royals’ property holdings, which include some of the priciest properties in central London and much of the seabed surrounding the British isles.

The Sovereign Grant was initially set at 15 percent of the profits of the Crown Estate before it was increased to 25 percent in 2017 to pay for extensive Buckingham Palace renovations. The monarch isn’t paid out of the profits of the Crown Estate, that’s just used as the benchmark.

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Still, if the value of the Crown Estate’s portfolio rises as offshore wind becomes a bigger part of Britain’s energy sector, then the value of the Sovereign Grant fund would increase as well.

Graham Smith, the head of the anti-monarchy group Republic, said that the moves by the palace are “disingenuous spin, it’s not their money, they aren’t gifting anything, but they are trying to preempt a government reduction in the percentage by saying it was a ‘request by the king.’”

A spokesman for the British treasury said the government is undertaking an official review of the Sovereign Grant, something that happens every five years, and is expected to make a decision on the percentage of profits the royal household receives in the next few months.

correction

A previous version of this story mischaracterized Republic. It is an anti-monarchy group. The article has been updated.