UK Tribunal To Hear The Guardian's Legal Challenge on UK Royal Family Security Costs This Week

This week, the UK's freedom of information tribunal is scheduled to hear The Guardian's petition to publicize the cost of protecting members of the British royal family.

In an exclusive report, The Guardian would, on Wednesday (November 8), challenge the government's refusal to tell the public how much of taxpayers' money was spent on protecting King Charles III and other members of the House of Windsor.

Traditionally, the budget allocated to royal protection has been kept secret, but it has been estimated to be in the tens of millions each year. The secrecy prevented the public from knowing the true overall cost of funding the British monarchy.

UK Tribunal To Hear The Guardian's Legal Challenge on UK Royal Family Security Costs This Week

(Photo : Rob Pinney/Getty Images)
Coverage of the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II is seen on the front page of Britain’s The Guardian newspaper on September 20, 2022 in London, England.

Knowing the Price of Sovereign Security

Over two days, the tribunal would hear the publication's appeal of disclosing the cost of providing security for the royal family from 2017 to 2020. However, the paper also stipulated that it was neither asking how the total was spent on individual members of the Windsor family nor the precise capabilities that the money was spent.

However, the Home Office opposed the prospect of disclosing the overall total, arguing that it was legally entitled to withhold it as it could pose an unacceptable threat to national security and encourage would-be attackers as it could help their research to locate flaws in security measures that were in place to protect the Windsors.

The Home Office's position has been backed by British information commissioner John Edwards, who was part of the adjudicators of freedom of information disputes.

Edwards agreed with the Home Office, saying that publishing the three-year combined total of the royal security budget would "give some indication of the annual cost when simply divided by three."

However, The Guardian maintained that publishing the overall protection bill for the three-year period would not provide any useful information to a potential attacker and that disclosing the figure would enhance democratic debate about the cost of the monarchy.