Planning begins for a Royal memorial

A NATIONAL memorial to Elizabeth II must make “good use” of public money, her former private secretary has said.

Lord Janvrin, one of the late Queen’s most loyal and trusted aides, will lead the committee that is choosing how best to commemorate her. The committee meets for the first time at Buckingham Palace today.

The 77-year-old acknowledged that the national memorial must be modern enough to engage future generations, appealing to both young and old. The public will be invited to have its say, most likely through feedback rather than a vote.

Lord Janvrin said: “The committee will be very alive to the current economic situation and very aware that, in moving forward with this project, we need to take that into account.

“That said, I think there is widespread support for some kind of memorial and I think it’s our duty to try and match that expectation by being very clear about good use of public money.” He said his team would be guided by the monarch’s “relentless common sense” and “practical approach”, adding: “I think that the Queen herself, who I worked with for 20 years, always thought it was not the place for her to be at the sort of cutting edge of fashion.

“But we need to have produced some kind of memorial that will engage people in the future. Somehow, we’ve got to mix tradition with modernity.

“And we have in both the structure – the monument – and the legacy, quite a canvas to try to engage younger people and the whole nation.”

The committee will make recommendations for both a permanent memorial and a national legacy programme to be announced in 2026 – which would have been the late Queen’s 100th birthday year.

Appointees include Baroness Amos, the Labour peer, Sir William Shawcross, the Queen Mother’s official biographer, and Alex Holmes, an anti-bullying campaigner and the deputy chief executive of the Diana Award.