Overview

• New National Archives files released in July 2025 reveal Buckingham Palace officials quietly sought a Commons statement on Britannia’s “inestimable value” in 1993.
• Sir Robert Fellowes and other senior courtiers privately approached Downing Street and hosted a “splendid lunch” aboard Britannia to showcase its role in UK diplomacy and trade.
• Cabinet Office figures, led by Nicolas Bevan, warned that endorsing the yacht publicly would be “highly prejudicial” to future decisions and blocked the wording.
• John Major later pledged in January 1997 to commission a successor if re-elected, a commitment overturned by the incoming Labour government.
• The disclosures highlight longstanding tensions between royal prestige projects, government cost scrutiny and the need for political neutrality years after Britannia’s 1997 decommissioning.