Custom exemptions for the Queen in her personal capacity have been written into more than 160 laws since 1967, giving her wide-ranging immunity from British laws, from animal welfare to workers’ rights. Tens extend additional immunity to her portfolio of private properties, giving her unique protection as the owner of large landed estates.
More than 30 different laws state that police are banned from entering the private estates of Balmoral and Sandringham without the Queen’s permission to investigate suspected crimes, including wildlife crime and environmental pollution – legal immunity granted to no one else a private landowner in the country.
Police are also required to obtain her personal consent before they can investigate alleged offenses at her private salmon and trout fishing business on the River Dee in Balmoral, where fishermen are charged up to £630 a day to fish.
Under the long-standing but ill-defined doctrine of sovereign immunity, criminal and civil proceedings cannot be brought against the monarch as head of state. But a Guardian investigation 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 citizen, along with her private assets and properties – and even private businesses .
One constitutional expert warned that exemptions undermine the idea that everyone is equal before the law, while another recommended overhauling the monarchy and simplifying exemptions in the name 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 that cannot be sold. The second, Elizabeth Windsor, is a private individual who can buy and sell investments and assets like any other citizen. Although known for their royal association, the Sandringham and Balmoral estates are private assets of the Windsor family.
Unlike other private individuals, however, Elizabeth Windsor also has personalized exemptions and exemptions written into parts of British law, often in areas in which she has private interests or investments.
“There is a clear pattern and they are very much linked to the economic interests of the monarch,” said Thomas Adams, associate professor of law at Oxford University, who examined 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 Windsors. 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 has influenced legislation using an obscure procedure known as the Queen’s assent, where her lawyers can scrutinize laws that may affect her before Parliament approves them.
“The Crown’s principles of application are long established and widely 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 monarchy. He declined to explain the palace’s interpretation of the private immunity clauses. McCabe does not dispute the existence of the exemptions or that their effect is to confer immunity on 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 bar the Queen’s employees from making complaints about sexual and racial discrimination. Even the most modern anti-discrimination law, the Equality Act 2010, is designed not to protect the Queen’s employees.
Other laws contain exemptions exempting 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 staff from bringing discrimination claims against her household dates back to the late 1960s, when courtiers told ministers that it was “not actually the practice to appoint colored immigrants or foreigners” to clerical posts. 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 anti-discrimination law has generally been worded opaquely.
While other clauses outright state that the law “does not affect Her Majesty in her personal 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 document.
This discreet approach can be seen in laws from the 1970s when the Queen was exempt from legislation, including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. At the time, a Whitehall mandarin described in a letter to Martin Charteris, the Queen’s then private secretary, how the wording of an exception has “the essential advantage of not drawing attention to the sovereign’s position”.
Private properties
Thirty-one laws contain queen immunity clauses, barring police or environmental inspectors from accessing the Windsors’ private properties unless they first get her permission. Sixteen are linked to Scotland, where she owns the 24,800-hectare (61,500-acre) Balmoral estate, which is held in her name by a private trust.
Three laws contain clauses immunizing her private properties against foreclosure. 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 extended to the Windsor family’s private salmon fishing business in Balmoral. Her estate leases fishing grounds on the River Dee to the public, advertising them as “some of the finest fishing facilities in Scotland”.
Illegal fishing is a serious problem on the river – in 2020-21 there were 51 suspected poaching incidents investigated by police and water bailiffs. But in 2013 Scottish ministers used a clause in the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act to make clear that police and water bailiffs are prevented from carrying out environmental inspections and visits to the beats without the Queen’s permission.
Documents obtained through the Environment Information Act read: “Provision has been made to require consent to be sought before certain powers of entry on private property can be exercised”, and described the clause as “defensible given the Queen’s position as owner of the salmon fishery in Her private capacity”.
Under the Queen’s Assent process, Scottish ministers had to provide a copy of the legislation to the Queen’s Privy Council for their review before Holyrood could pass the law. A 2013 memorandum drawn up to help ministers secure her approval, obtained by the Guardian, noted the Queen’s private business interests: “The exercise of these powers may affect Her Majesty’s salmon fishery at Balmoral Estate, although the exercise of such rights will not be undertaken without first obtaining Her Majesty’s consent.
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Dr Craig Prescott, 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 exemptions risked the monarchy being accused of hypocrisy.
The Prince of Wales has championed the protection of the natural environment for decades, while the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have won 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 — at least animal welfare — 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 to which the law does not apply.”
Tax exemption
Other immunity clauses of the Queen exempt her from paying taxes or providing information to the authorities that collect them. In the early 1990s, Buckingham Palace admitted that the Queen had not paid tax on income or capital gains, including on her private interests, and after fierce public criticism she agreed to pay some tax “voluntarily”.
However, following the devolution deals of Blair’s first ministry, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd passed their own tax legislation. Scottish ministers included the Queen’s immunity clauses in laws passed between 2013 and 2017, exempting the Queen from various minor taxes levied on other British citizens. It pays no duty on land purchases, no landfill charges and is partially exempt from duty on air travel.
The exemptions, included in four laws passed by the parliaments of Westminster, Scotland and Wales between 2008 and 2017, state that unless she pays tax, she is not required to provide information to tax inspectors or official statisticians.
Two Westminster Acts in 2008 and 2011 prevent HM Revenue and Customs from forcing her to provide information and she is not required to co-operate with the Scottish and Welsh tax authorities created by devolved legislation in 2014 and 2016.
Strengthening the defense
In some cases, the purpose of the immunity is difficult to understand, such as its exemption from a 2011 law that gave local councils the right to charge bars for selling alcohol after midnight, or a proposed clause in a 1998 law that would have banned private …
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