More than 30 different laws state police are barred from entering the private Balmoral and Sandringham estates without the Queen’s permission to investigate suspected crimes, including wildlife and environmental pollution offenses – a legal immunity granted to no other private landowner in the country . Police are also being asked to get her personal agreement before they can investigate suspected offenses at her private salmon and trout fishing business on the River Dee at Balmoral, where anglers are charged up to £630 a day to fish. Under the long-standing but undefined doctrine of sovereign immunity, criminal and civil proceedings cannot be brought against the monarch as head of state. However, an investigation by the Guardian, based on official documents and analysis of legislation, reveals the extent to which laws have been written or amended to specify immunity for her conduct as a private individual, along with her own property and assets – and still a privately owned business. One constitutional expert warned that the carvings undermine the idea that everyone is equal before the law, while another recommended the monarchy be overhauled and exemptions simplified for the sake of public transparency. As monarch, the Queen has a public and private legal personality. The first, Elizabeth II, is the public figure who serves as head of state and owns historic assets such as Buckingham Palace or the royal art collection, which cannot be sold. The second, Elizabeth Windsor, is an individual who can buy and sell investments and assets like any other citizen. Although famous for their royal association, the Sandringham and Balmoral estates are private properties of the Windsor family. Unlike other private individuals, however, Elizabeth Windsor also had personal imprints and exemptions written into parts of British law, often in areas where she had private interests or investments. “There is a clear pattern and they are very much related to the financial interests of the monarch,” said Thomas Adams, associate professor of law at Oxford University, who reviewed the Guardian’s findings. The UK government and Buckingham Palace declined to answer questions in detail about the process by which exemptions were obtained for the Windsor family. Both declined to say whether the Queen or her representatives had asked for private legal immunity to be enshrined in law. A recent Guardian investigation separately revealed how the monarch influenced legislation using an obscure process known as the Queen’s assent, in which her lawyers can vet laws that might affect her before parliament approves them. “The Crown’s principles of application are well established and well known,” said Donal McCabe, the Queen’s communications secretary, referring to the legal doctrine that UK law does not generally apply to the government and the monarchy. He declined to explain the palace’s interpretation of the privacy clauses. McCabe did not dispute the existence of the exemptions or that their effect was to grant immunity to the Queen as a private landowner and business owner. The exemptions granted to the current Queen will, in most cases, be transferred to Prince Charles when he becomes King.
Immunity from anti-discrimination laws
The most controversial exemptions prohibit the Queen’s employees from making complaints about sexual and racial discrimination. Even the most modern piece of anti-discrimination law, the Equality Act 2010, is designed not to protect those employed by the Queen. Other laws contain passages that exempt the Queen as a private employer from having to comply with various laws on workers’ rights, health and safety or pensions. It is fully or partially exempt from at least four different workers’ pension laws and is not required to comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The practice of preventing the Queen’s servants from bringing discrimination claims against her household dates back to the late 1960s, when courtiers told ministers that it was “not, in fact, the practice to appoint colored immigrants or foreigners”. in clerical roles in the royal household. . Perhaps out of concern that such exemptions might be controversial or unacceptable to the British public, the Queen’s immunity from discrimination law has usually been drafted opaquely. While other clauses bluntly state that the law “does not affect Her Majesty in her private capacity” or does not apply to her private estates, her exemption from the Equality Act 2010 is only apparent through a one-line statement in an accompanying explanatory memorandum document. This discretionary approach can be seen in laws dating back to the 1970s, when the Queen was exempted from legislation, including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. At the time, a Whitehall mandarin described in a letter to Martin Charteris , then the Queen’s private secretary, how the formulation of an exception had “the essential advantage of not drawing attention to the sovereign’s position”.
Private properties
Thirty-one laws contain Queen’s immunity clauses that prevent police or environmental inspectors from accessing the Windsor family’s private properties unless they first get her permission. Sixteen relate to Scotland, where she owns the 24,800-acre (61,500-acre) Balmoral estate, which is held on her behalf by a private trust. Three laws contain clauses inoculating her private property against compulsory purchase. In a case first reported last year, the Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied for her to be immune from parts of a major Scottish law to cut carbon emissions. Her legal immunity even extends to the Windsor family’s private salmon fishing business in Balmoral. Her estate rents out the common fishing beaches on the River Dee, advertising them “as some of the best fishing in Scotland”. Illegal fishing is a serious issue on the river – in 2020-21 there were 51 suspected poaching incidents investigated by police and bailiffs. However, in 2013 Scottish ministers used a clause in the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act to clarify that police and water bailiffs could not carry out environmental inspections and beat enforcement visits without the Queen’s permission . Documents obtained through Environment Information Legislation say: “There is a provision requiring consent to be sought before certain powers of entry on private estates are exercised” and describe the clause as “defensible given the Queen’s position as the beneficiary of salmon fishing in the private capacity” . Under the Queen’s assent process, Scottish ministers had to provide a copy of the legislation to the Queen’s private lawyers for review before Holyrood could approve the law. A 2013 memo drawn up to help ministers secure her approval, obtained by the Guardian, noted the Queen’s private business interests: “Exercising these powers could affect Her Majesty’s salmon fishing on the Balmoral estate , although the exercise of such rights would not be effected without first obtaining the consent of Her Majesty.” Graphic Dr Craig Prescott, a lecturer in constitutional law at Bangor University and former director of the Center for Parliament and Public Law at the University of Winchester, said some of the exceptions risked opening the monarchy to charges of hypocrisy. The Prince of Wales has supported the protection of the natural environment for decades, while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge win the Earthshot Award for solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. “If you’re campaigning for the environment or conservation and it turns out that some laws related to the environment or conservation – animal welfare at least – don’t apply to your private residences, then that doesn’t look good,” Prescott said, ” especially if you are the only private residence in the country where the law does not apply.”
Tax exemptions
Other immunity clauses of the Queen exempt her from paying taxes or giving information to the agencies that collect them. In the early 1990s, Buckingham Palace admitted that the Queen had not paid income or capital gains tax, including on her private interests, and after intense public criticism agreed to pay some tax “voluntarily”. However, following the devolution deals of the first Blair ministry, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Sened are passing their own tax legislation. Scottish ministers have included the Queen’s immunity clauses in laws passed between 2013 and 2017, exempting the Queen from a variety of small taxes levied on other British citizens. It pays no duties on land purchases, no landfill fees and is partially exempt from duties on air travel. Exemptions introduced in four laws passed by the parliaments of Westminster, Scotland and Wales between 2008 and 2017 state that apart from not paying tax, it is not required to provide information to tax inspectors or official statisticians. Two acts of Westminster in 2008 and 2011 prevent HM Revenue and Customs from forcing it to provide information and it is not required to co-operate with the Scottish and Welsh tax authorities set up by devolved legislation in 2014 and 2016.
Strengthening protection
In some cases, the purpose of the immunity is difficult to understand, such as its exemption from a 2011 law authorizing local councils to charge bars for selling alcohol after midnight, or a proposed clause in a 1998 law banning private …
