The British Waterways Civil List and the Crown Estate Property Portfolio

IWA chairman Clive Henderson has a letter in The Times today, Waterways are the nation's heritage, protesting at the likely inclusion of British Waterways canalside property in the Government sell-off of assets.

The property portfolio provides British Waterways with about £45 million per year in revenue. British Waterways already has an annual shortfall of £30 million in the amount estimated to maintain the waterways properly. That gets worse in 2010-11, as Government grants have already been cut by 17 per cent, leaving a £40 million funding gap. Losing another £45 million makes the shortfall £85 million.

Government has been reducing grants and will want to continue reducing them. That can only lead to waterways falling into dereliction and, as safety becomes compromised, closures.

I disagree with his premise.  [Update: This whole damn post needs rewriting.  I've reduced it to two paragraphs as follows: )

The general opposition to the sell-off is based on the pessimistic idea that government funding is inevitably going to continue to diminish. I wanted to say that the property issue is perhaps a fine time to bargain with the government about a permanent, fixed place for the waterways in the public purse, setting it in stone as it were, and stopping the erosion.

My other point was that this is precisely what the Crown Estate/Civil List offered for the monarchy.  When George III came to the throne in 1760 he gave up his 'property portfolio' to Parliament in return for a guaranteed income. It worked well for 200 years, and the Crown Estate has been a well-managed and profitable 'property portfolio' that not only paid for the monarchy (the Civil List) but provided a surplus.   However, in recent years the original purpose of the  Crown Estate has been perverted into just another piggy bank for greedy bureaucrats to raid, and the monarch now gets less than 4% of the income.

(I'm a constitutional monarchist.  I like the idea of a monarch who's supposed to be regal, in order to make politicians feel inferior.)

Anyway, I won't remove the rest of the post; I'll just leave it below the fold for curiosity's sake.  But you can stop reading now.  

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I'm starting to feel that this 'property portfolio' argument is becoming a stupid fetish.  It's as if it's owning canalside land is the only thing that can keep the canals opened and in a healthy state.

What keeps canals open is funding.  It matters little whence the money comes - whether it's from BW's own wheeling and dealing of land that's no longer used for actual canal maintenance/business purposes, or if it comes out of general taxes. 

Or even from local government pockets (currently that's a feeble 1% of the total, according to the IWAC, but perhaps raising that would make council tax payers squeal and question the value of their local canal).

The IWA Times letter talks of the cutback of government funding as a given, and that the purported sell-off means the entire amount would therefore be lost to the canals.  And the No. 10 petition this last couple of weeks has pushed that to its limit, with a lot of simple sloganising, paticularly by people who know little or nothing about the canals.

I've not heard any public dialogue with the government about the total amount the waterways deserve in subsidies.  Why can't it come in lieu of the 'property portfolio income'?

There is a precedent to all this.  However, it's an ominous one. 

When George III came to the throne in 1760, Parliament persuaded him that if he'd hand over almost the entire Royal estate, they would grant him adequate funding (the 'Civil List') to keep the monarchy operating in the role it had evolved into.

Today the Crown Estates are estimated to be worth perhaps £6bn, and generate over £225m annually.  Meanwhile, the Queen's Civil List is around £8m, which is less than 4% of the total.

The Crown Estate no longer acknowledges the historic side of its bargain.  Its website says: 

We have two main objectives: to benefit the taxpayer by paying the revenue from our assets directly to the Treasury; and to enhance the value of the estate and the income it generates.

No mention of Parliament's original obligation to support the Sovereign in return.  Its 'related websites' page doesn't even include the Queen's website.

So we have the condition today where the Queen is often said to be simply 'sponging off the taxpayers'.  If anyone 250 years ago had suggested this would happen, I'm sure Parliament would have considered it an insult to their intentions and  honour. 

In the same way, I suppose my idea that the canals could be a complete and proper charge on the public purse in return for surrendering the 'property portfolio' - a Waterways Civil List so to speak - would be considered hopelessly naive.  It would be squeezed just like Sovereign.  Run along sonny, there's a good boy, leave this to us. 

But there's a further comparison between BW and the Crown Estate.  The latter seems to be doing awfully well, in terms of managing its investments and profits. 

Here are the Crown Estate board members.  How much are they paid?

Comments

[flats to rent in london]

Some useful "un -thought of" advise thanks!

[Anyone But Prince Charles]

"...the monarch now gets less than 4% of the income." I doubt that is actually true.

The Crown Estate, which manages the royals' property portfolio and is supposed to benefit the taxpayer by paying any revenue directly into the Treasury, is currently aiming to raise £250million a year for the public by 2012.

However, it has emerged that the organisation sold the freehold to Sunninghill Park to Prince Andrew for just £12,265 in August 2003.

The Sunday Times investigation also found that Andrew then sold his former marital home for a massive £15million, pocketing a cool £15 million profit.

Its buyer was reportedly Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son in law of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, but the mansion near Ascot now lies dilapidated and abandoned.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6638322.ece

Why on earth do you like the idea of a monarch who's supposed to be regal, in order to make politicians feel inferior??!

You do realise fascism started in Italy, which was a constitutional monarchy until 1945, don't you?

King Victor Emmanuel the 3rd was King of Italy throughout the second world war. When Italy invaded Ethiopia, King Victor happily became Emperor of Ethiopia.

Japan was a constitutional monarchy until supporters of the Japanese monarchy had the liberal Prime Minister of Japan, Inukai Tsuyoshi the leader of the Constitutional Party, assassinated.

One of their excuses for murdering him was exactly yours, that the prime minister was not showing the Monarch enough respect, he was not scared of him enough. Britain and the Republic of America lost tens of thousand of brave men fighting the arrogant Emperor of Japan and his evil, genocidal royalist friends.

Monarchists have a very, very long history of being the strongest supporters of fascism.

When, Franco became leader of the Fascists in Spain it was only after the previous leader, whose was also the leader of the monarchists party, was assassinated by a left wing radical.

Hitler's first attempt to topple the Weimar Republic was largely a conspiracy of Monarchists who wanted to return the Kaiser to power.

I think the very last thing we want is a prime minister who is scared of the Monarch. No, the Prime minister should only be the servant of the common people and not of some spoilt King or Queen.

[Andrew Denny]

Tom, which organisation are you referring to?

[Tom]

You could at least get the name of the organisation correct, there is also a lot of nonsense in the body of what you say/claim.

[Will Chapman]

I think it is likely that every conceivable way of funding BW has been discussed and as for a dialogue about what the waterways deserves in terms of subsidies that is core to the studies that have been commissioned by IWAC http://tinyurl.com/yg7ck46.

I understand this research will be a central part of the forthcoming new policy document, Waterways for Everybody (WfE), (formerly Waterways for Tomorrow). On Monday, Irranca-Davies announced that he expected to release WfE for consultation before the December recess.

I will be pleasantly surprised if the contents of the pre-budget report and/or WfE give us a clear solution to the future of the waterways but it should at least identify the areas that need to be in pre-election campaign that I hope will be mounted by all stakeholder groups.

[Tony]

Interesting but a big worry.

Wonder if any of the waterways are subject to a Royal Charter?

[Andrew Denny]

Martin, Oh, my apologies! My first reply to you was before I edited it. I then woke up this morning, and after reading Carol's comment I did the redraft and 'split'.
Andrew

[Martin Clark]

Andrew - I don't know what you mean by "the first page". I read the whole of your post, which was all on one page.

Did you type your reply to me before or after you decided that the post needed re-writing? :)

[Roger]

Regarding 'sell offs,' didnt Henderson do that with the historic bridge at Lock 56, Stratford when he was sec of SONACS? Thats the little known side of this story.

[Carol]

Andrew, I think the problem, at least for me, is that I don't understand the argument you're trying to make in the second part of your post. Either I'm dense or you're unclear. I prefer the latter explanation. :-)

Also, I get stuck here:
"I've not heard any public dialogue with the government about the total amount the waterways deserve in subsidies. Why can't it come in lieu of the 'property portfolio income'?"

I know it is an unpopular perspective to believe the world is in a depression, but I expect tax revenues to continue to fall, and government spending to fall even further. There will be no money for hospitals, roads, or schools. The canals, which are seen as a leisure amenity, are so far down on the list that the statement that the "waterways deserve subsidies" will be laughable.

My view is different, since I see canals as a substitute for road transport when peak oil hits us for real. We need to maintain canals for their original purpose, transporting goods and people. Feel free to view this as an extreme opinion. :-)

[Andrew Denny]

Martin, I guess I can't blame you for not reading beyond the first page :-)

[Martin Clark]

Of course what keeps the canals open is funding. But get real, Andrew! Do you really believe that this government or any that takes its place would make up the £45 million shortfall if the property was sold off? They'd make up some of it, but they no doubt use it as a chance to hack yet more from the funding that is needed.

The whole point of BW building up its property assets is to make it less dependent on the whims of government. Oh, and the property BW owns isn't necessarily canalside or ex-waterway land.