§ The COMMITTEE to whom the Establishment of her late Majesty, and the estimate of the expenses of the proposed establishment of his Majesty's future household at Windsor, were referred;—Have agreed to the following Report:
§ Your Committee have deemed it to be their duty, in the first place, to take into their consideration the arrangement which has been proposed for the future establishment of his Majesty.
§ By the Act of the 52 Geo. 3rd, c. 8, the sum of 100,000l. was directed to be set apart annually out of the Civil List, for the expense of the king's household; and any surplus, after defraying this charge, was to be applied to the purposes of his majesty's civil establishment.
§ It appears to your Committee, that the reduction, which is proposed in that expenditure, of one half, may with propriety be made; and that an annual sum of 50,000l. will be sufficient to provide for this service; and they refer to the estimates, under the different heads, annexed to this Report.
§ In considering the scale and expense of the establishment which it is necessary 458 to form, while they approve of the discontinuance of the salaries of certain of the officers of state, who have hitherto, since his majesty's indisposition, been retained, yet your Committee recommend, that, at the head of the establishment, an officer of the rank of the groom of the stole should be placed, as they deem it important to have a person of rank and of high station, connected with the king's service, generally residing near his majesty's person. For the same reasons it appears expedient, that one of the king's equerries (the number of whom, in the judgment of the committee, ought to be limited to four) should be in daily and constant attendance at Windsor.
§ In the examination of the estimates for defraying the charge of the proposed tables, and for the other branches of expenditure at Windsor, your Committee have received satisfactory explanations respecting them from colonel Stephenson, to whom the superintendence of the king's household has been in a great degree confided.
§ It appears to them, that the estimates have been framed, for the services to which they are to be applied, with a due attention to economy; and they refer particularly to "the explanatory statement of the estimate for the expense of his majesty's household," which is annexed. A large portion of the expense which, as your Committee are informed, cannot be estimated at less than one-third of the whole amount, will be at all events to be incurred by the maintenance of Windsor Castle as a royal residence, and ought not to be set down as exclusively belonging to the establishment of his majesty. The names and descriptions of the officers, whose salaries have been discontinued, will be found in the Appendix, together with a list of the menial servants who have been reduced; and the amount of the wages and appointments which the latter received in the king's service.
§ Your Committee next proceeded to the subject of the establishment of her late majesty, which had been referred to their consideration.
§ His royal highness the Prince Regent having been pleased, by his gracious message, to place at the disposal of parliament, the sum of 58,000l. per annum, in consequence of her majesty's demise, and at the same time to recommend to the House of Commons, the claim- 459 founded on the faithful services of those who formed the separate establishment of her majesty, in order that the House might be enabled to judge what part of that sum it may be advisable to apply to the annual provision for such persons, your Committee have obtained accounts of such allowances as were made to the officers and servants of queen Mary on her demise in the year 1694; of queen Caroline in 1737; and to the household of the princess dowager of Wales in 1772; amounting annually, for the establishment of queen Mary, to 15,278l. 16s. 8d.; to that of queen Caroline, to 19,812l.; and for the household of the princess dowager of Wales, to 19,702l. 7s.. 10d.
§ The grants, in the instances referred to, were not brought under the consideration or view of parliament, but were paid out of the civil list revenues; an annual saving on these revenues having been made by the discontinuance of the respective royal establishments to a greater extent than those allowances amounted to. In the year 1782, by the act passed for the regulation of the civil list, the amount of pensions to be granted out of the civil list revenues was limited, and in consequence of that limitation, and the present charge on the pension list, it is not possible to place such allowances as it may be wished to grant to the queen's servants upon that fund; but the whole sum of 58,000l., which was annually paid to the queen, being now at the disposal of parliament, it remains for parliament to make such provision, in this respect, as it may in its liberality think fit.
§ In offering for the consideration of the House the annexed scale of pensions recommended for the servants of her late majesty, while your Committee have had in view the expectations which those persons may reasonably have entertained, as to the provision which would be made for them when their services should cease, they yet feel it to be their duty to submit to the House, that this recommendation should not be drawn into precedent on the formation of future establishments.
§ It will be observed, that the state officers, as well as some others, to whom their salaries were continued for life, in the instances referred to, do not appear in the list which is proposed. The general principle which has been adopted in framing it, being to suggest a provision for the female part of the queen's house- 460 hold, and for the domestic officers and menials, of whom the greater proportion have been for many years, and during the course of a long reign, attached to her service. The amount of this provision, together with the pensions to be continued to such as were the objects of her majesty's benevolence, is less than was given upon the two last occasions which have been noticed, without taking into account the difference in the value of money at those periods, and at the present.
§ If parliament shall approve of what has been here submitted, legislative enactments will be required to carry these regulations into effect. It will be necessary to alter that part of the act of the 52d Geo. 3rd, cap. 8, which appoints the attendants on the king's person, and also to regulate the sum to be in future appropriated for defraying the expense of his majesty's household. That clause also of the act of the 56 Geo. 3rd, cap. 46, which enacts, that whenever the charge upon the civil list shall exceed in any one year 1,100,000l., an account of the exceeding, and the cause thereof, shall be laid before parliament, must be amended, so as to require a similar account to be submitted, whenever that charge shall exceed the amount to which the expenditure of the civil list shall be limited by the reductions which are now proposed.
§ 17th February,1819.
§ Ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.