N.B. this article references her majesty, the late Queen (Queen Elizabeth II) when mentioning legal exemptions and powers given to the monarch, despite the fact that our current monarch is King Charles III, as she was who the sources used referenced.
While the coronation is in many ways a celebration, it also provides a clear time to examine whether the monarchy still has a place in our society. After all, the social and political landscape of our country has changed beyond recognition from when the first Kings of England took to the throne. Due to the extremely broad range of duties a monarch holds in this country, this article will only analyse the scope the monarchy has to abuse their power and will examine the legal exemptions the monarch enjoys and whether they ultimately contribute to the state.
But before the legal facets of the monarchy are discussed, a quick distinction must be made. Firstly, in the eyes of the law, the Queen had 2 personas – Elizabeth II (the queen as a figure) and Elizabeth Windsor (a private individual who could buy and sell assets like any other citizen, like you or me). And secondly, many of the exemptions and mechanisms that will be mentioned were very likely transferred to Charles III upon his ascent to the throne.
To begin with one of the most shocking facts – the monarchy is exempt from the 2010 Equality Act. This is the act that makes it more difficult for disabled people to be screened out when applying for jobs, the act that makes pay secrecy clauses unenforceable, and the act that allows for claims for direct gender pay discrimination. The Queen was also exempt from the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, and three other laws from the 70s that were created to counter racial and sexual discrimination. This meant that staff in the royal household were purposefully prevented from taking their cases to the court. In 1991, a ‘source close to the Queen’ confirmed ‘that there were no non-white courtiers in the palace’s most senior ranks’, and in 1997 the palace said that it was ‘not carrying out an officially recommended policy of monitoring staff numbers to ensure equal opportunities. And even today, employees cannot pursue sexual and racial discrimination complaints. Furthermore, the Queen was exempt from multiple iterations of the equality acts, including the most recent one – it must be stressed that this was a conscious decision, which occurred extremely recently.
But to leave the equality acts behind, let us examine a few of the 160 laws which have had exemptions written for the Queen since 1967. More than 30 laws state that the police are banned from entering Balmoral and Sandringham estates without permission from the Queen. While these estates are associated with the royal family, they are private assets of the Windsor family. This means that the police cannot gain access to investigate suspected crimes including wildfire offenses and environmental pollution, without the consent of the private individual that owns that property- a luxury that is afforded to no other private landowner in the UK. Outside of their royal capacity as private individuals, they are still treated as above every other citizen in the UK, which seems rather contrary to the UK constitution’s claim that ‘All persons shall be equal before the law and shall be entitled to the equal protection of the law, without discrimination.’ As a private employer, the Queen was fully or partly exempt from 4different workers’ pension laws and wasn’t required to comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974. The royal family has also had a role in shaping the laws that affect the public. Through a process called the Queen’s consent mechanism, more than 1000 laws were vetted by the Queen or Prince Charles before they were approved by the UK’s elected members of parliament. These were laws that ranged from justice to social security, pensions, race relations and food policy. Furthermore, the Guardian revealed that the Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied for her to be immune from parts of a major Scottish law involving the reduction of carbon emission.
To make something very clear – I’m not suggesting that the Queen was trying to hide a dangerously unsafe work environment or trying to hide an oil spill in her private estates, but rather I am trying to illustrate the level of power the monarchy have to influence laws that both affect them and the public. I believe the Queen shouldn’t have had a say as to whether she was affected by the Scottish law on carbon emissions., Do you truly believe that the monarchy always has the interests of the people first? Do you truly believe that they don’t abuse the power that they’ve been given? And do you really think that this power should rest in the hands of someone who hasn’t been elected to have it, and (for example with the carbon emission law) whose actions could have permanent negative consequences for our country?
But moving on to financial reasoning. A phrase you will have heard over, and over again in the past few months is that we are in a cost-of-living crisis. And I think that phrase has become slightly less meaningful to us as a result, so for a moment I’d like you to consider the following:
320,000 people have turned to food banks in the last sixth months alone, and food banks are in danger of running out of supplies completely. There has been a 40% increase in new users over the past 6 months compared to the same period last year. Parents don’t have money to feed their children, and people have spent the winter cold because they don’t have the means to pay for something as essential as heating and gas.
And during this same period, we held the Queen’s funeral. An event which is estimated to have cost upwards of £8 million. Not only did this funeral cost an extortionate sum, but GDP contracted by 0.6%, reflecting the extra bank holiday for the Queen’s funeral, and the period of national mourning that led up to that. Before my words are misconstrued, I would like to point out that I don’t think we shouldn’t have had a funeral at all. The Queen was a prominent figure in Britain for decades, and as tradition stands, a mourning period and funeral are appropriate. But do you really think that we should continue to spend these extortionate sums of money on events?
Furthermore, Charles III will pay no inheritance tax on his mother’s wealth, when the public must pay 40% on anything over £325,000 that they inherit. Amid a spike in public spending for both the funeral and coronation in the past 3 months, one of the richest individuals in the UK will be contributing not even a fraction of what a normal member of the public would have to.
And the argument that the monarchy positively impacts tourism is flimsy. Versailles is one of the world’s top 50 tourist destinations and receives 6 million visitors a year. Buckingham Palace receives about half a million visitors a year. But France is a republican country. If the UK were to become a republic, the sites that tourists come to visit would remain where they are, as would the history behind them. In 2019 (pre-Covid) the biggest visitor attractions in the UK were the Tate Gallery, the British Museum, and the National Gallery – each with more than 5 million visitors, and none of which are visibly associated with the monarchy.
So, in summary, I take issue with the legal exceptions that the monarchy enjoys, and the power that the monarchy wields to influence laws. The royal family’s financial contributions are by no means significant enough to maintain the institution as a whole. The time has long come for the extent of the monarchy’s power to be critically analysed, and I hope that this happens sooner rather than later.
