Commentary on Sections and Schedules Supplementary and general Section 16: Duration of Sovereign Grant provisions etc
105.The long-standing convention is for the civil list settlement of each sovereign (including the monarch’s surrender of the hereditary revenues) to last for 6 months after the end of his or her reign. This process allows time to prepare provision for the next sovereign. Subsection (1) repeats this traditional approach.
106.Subsections (3) and (4) provide an alternative approach. On the demise of the monarch, his or her successor will need continuing support arrangements. Subsection (3) therefore allows a new Sovereign to agree to extending the Sovereign Grant provisions, and so to continuing the payment of the hereditary revenues as directed in section 1 of the Civil List Act 1952, for the duration of his or her reign plus 6 months. The Sovereign signifies that agreement, with the advice of the Privy Council, by an Order in Council. The Order has no parliamentary procedure. It must be made within 6 months of the death of the previous sovereign. If no Order is made, the Sovereign Grant provisions will expire six months after the end of the previous monarch’s reign.
107.Subsection (4) amends section 1(1) of the Civil List Act 1952 to create a link to section 1. Since 1760, each successive monarch has agreed to exchange the hereditary revenues of the Crown at the start of their reign in return for financial support from the Consolidated Fund. The amendment links the surrender of the hereditary revenues with the duration of the Sovereign Grant.
108.Subsection (5) provides that the provisions for honorific pensions paid under section 5 of the Civil List Act 1837 have permanent effect.
109.Subsection (6) provides that pensions paid under the Civil List Act 1837 are to be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund.