COULD the Queen be a victim of the court case taken by the organisation she heads?
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was given a Royal Charter, as the name suggests, in 1904 during the reign of Edward VII. Supplemental Royal Charters have been granted by the current Queen in 1957, 1996 and 2014. She remains the Patron of the charity which is one of the richest in Britain.
The problem for the RSPB is that the Queen is technically the beneficiary — though not the owner — of the Crown Estate which, for the next 10 years, will contribute 25 per cent of its profits in England and Wales towards the Sovereign Grant — the Royals’ pay packet that replaced the Civil List. The latest net profit figure for the Crown Estate was announced in June as £328.8m, which means that in 2018/19, the Royal household will receive a sovereign grant of £82.2m, up 8.2 per cent on the current financial year — the increase approved by the Treasury is meant to pay for the repairs to Buckingham Palace.
At the moment, the Crown Estate’s property portfolio of £12.4 billion dwarfs the value of its offshore assets — the Crown Estate owns the sea bed around the coast of Great Britain out to the 12-mile territorial limit. But the energy, mineral and infrastructure assets of the Crown Estate have nevertheless soared in value to more than £1.1 billion, up 18 per cent in a year, driven by offshore wind farms and other renewables.
If the RSPB wins its case against the Scottish Government, it will be empowered to object to any future offshore wind farms within the 12 mile limit, and the lucrative leases for the Crown Estate will be under threat.
Renewables sources say there are a dozen such developments in the planning pipeline in bird-sensitive areas around Britain, and while nobody wants to say it, the Royal purse might yet take a hit from the RSPB.
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