The Queen secretly lobbied the government for a new yacht, letters reveal Sir Kenneth Scott, the Queen’s deputy private secretary, wrote to Richard Williams, a civil servant attached to the Cabinet Office, in 1995

The Queen secretly asked Whitehall for a new yacht, adding that the “question of where the money should come from” should only be considered after the feasibility of the request.

The written appeal, intended to replace the Royal Yacht Britannia when it went out of service in 1997, was made on the monarch’s behalf by a senior Buckingham Palace official.

Sir Kenneth Scott, the Queen’s deputy private secretary, wrote to Richard Williams, a civil servant attached to the Cabinet Office, in 1995, saying that the Queen would “very much welcome” a new yacht. However, he asked ministers to recognise the PR disaster that would unfold were the lobbying to be made public.

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“I have deliberately taken a back seat in recent correspondence, since the question of whether there should be a replacement yacht is very much one for the government and since the last thing I should like to see is a newspaper headline saying ‘Queen Demands New Yacht’,” Sir Kenneth, who died in February 2018, wrote.

“At the same time, I hope it is clear to all concerned that this reticence on the part of the palace in no way implies that Her Majesty is not deeply interested in the subject; on the contrary, the Queen would naturally very much welcome it if a way could be found of making available for the nation in the 21st Century the kind of service which Britannia has provided for the last 43 years.”

‘Spare money’

The letter, discovered in the National Archives by Philip Murphy of the University of London, was written after John Major‘s government announced that the Britannia would be decommissioned in 1997.

Sir Kenneth went on to note that the Queen was “very conscious” of the ideas that had been put forward for a replacement, and wished to be assured that they were “seriously considered by experts and, where appropriate, by ministers; and that the authors of these ideas have been given a full and reasoned response.”

He added his wish that any ideas discussed would first be considered in terms of their feasibility, then their cost, “and only after that [one should consider] the question of where the money should come from.”

“It would not, I suggest, be a sufficient answer to all those who have contributed ideas to say simply that there is no spare money in the defence budget.”

Sentimental value

The famously stoic Queen was seen making a rare public display of emotion when the Britannia was finally taken out of service in 1997 and permanently berthed in Leith in Edinburgh, shedding a tear at the scene.

Of apparent sentimental value, it was launched at the beginning of the Queen’s reign and customised to her taste and requirements.

However, some decades later the vessel had become too expensive, and the cost of running it became increasingly hard for the government to justify.

It had previously been assumed that she had avoided putting any such pressure on the government over the subject.

“Neither the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh have ever expressed an opinion on the way the issue was handled and nor would they do so,” a Palace spokesman told The Sunday Telegraph in 2003.

There have been several attempts to campaign for a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia since then – the political advantages of which those for it argued justified the £60million cost.

More recently, in 2017, 50 Conversative MPs signed an open letter suggesting a special national lottery be put on to raise the funds for a new royal yacht, which they hoped would serve as a “symbol of Global Britain” post-Brexit.