Sovereign Grant Act removes 2027 determination report and 2026 review

1Update

The Sovereign Grant Act 2026 (2026 c. 28) received Royal Assent on 02 November 2026. On that date, section 1(2) removed the Royal Trustees’ duty to prepare the statutory determination report for the 2027-28 Sovereign Grant, and related duties of the Trustees and Treasury. Section 2(2) also removed the duty to review the percentage in section 6 of the Sovereign Grant Act 2011 after the review period ending on 31 March 2026. These are the only substantive changes that commenced on Royal Assent; the Act contains no transitional provision preserving either scrutiny step.

The remaining provisions commence on 01 April 2027. They set the 2027-28 Sovereign Grant at £99.9 million, replace the section 6 Step 1 percentage of Crown Estate income-account net surplus from 12% to 20.5%, and introduce a 10%-to-50% test for the adjusted Reserve Fund value against audited net relevant resources.

New section 6A requires the Treasury to specify a different amount by statutory instrument where the Royal Trustees report that the formula amount is not appropriate and they cannot reduce it through Step 4 to meet that Reserve Fund test. An instrument increasing the amount against the section 6 determination requires prior Commons approval; one decreasing it is subject to annulment by the Commons. New section 6B separately permits the Treasury to increase the grant during the current financial year where it considers exceptional circumstances require this, after consulting the Royal Trustees and obtaining prior Commons approval. The Act does not define exceptional circumstances or set a maximum increase.