Downing Street rejects diamond jubilee royal yacht idea

Downing Street has moved swiftly to torpedo a proposal from the education secretary, Michael Gove, that the public should donate a £60m royal yacht to the Queen as part of this year's diamond jubilee celebrations.

David Cameron believed it would be inappropriate to spend public money on a yacht, the prime minister's official spokesman said.

"Clearly there is a difficult economic situation, there are scarce resources, and therefore we don't think it would be an appropriate use of public money at the present time," he said.

The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, also scorned the suggestion: "I suspect more people in the country would think, given there's very little money around, that this isn't top of their list of priorities for the use of scarce resources."

Responding to a question after giving a speech on the economy, Clegg said he wasn't going to comment on leaks – Gove's letter proposing the idea – but joked about "haves and have-yachts".

In the leaked confidential letter Gove sent to fellow ministers, he urged: "In spite, and perhaps because of, the austere times, the celebration should go beyond those of previous jubilees and mark the greater achievement that the diamond anniversary represents."

He suggested "a gift from the nation to her majesty" such as "David Willetts's excellent suggestion of a royal yacht".

Number 10 claimed that no one was talking about the use of public money and said in the first instance if there was any suggestion of raising private money for the boat, Buckingham Palace would first have to state whether the royal family would like a new yacht.

The Downing Street statement that public money had never been an issue in government discussions does not sit easily alongside the text of the letter by Gove.

The education secretary, after discussing the idea of the yacht, continues : "If there is not sufficient public money, then we should look for generous private donations to give every school a lasting memento of the occasion."

Number 10 refused to discuss whether it could do anything to facilitate or support the gathering of private cash for a yacht.

Tom Watson, the Labour party chairman, wrote in a blogpost that although the diamond jubilee should be celebrated, Gove has shown how out of touch he was with this proposal.

"When school budgets are being slashed, parents will be wondering how Gove came even to suggest this idea. This is not the time to spend £60m on a yacht," he said.

One of the few voices in favour of the proposal was journalist and writer on the royals Robert Hardman, who called the leaked letter "a great government endorsement" of the idea floated in the Daily Mail of a privately funded yacht.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Hardman said the proposal was "not for a new royal yacht but for a national flagship".

"This is not just something that is there for moving members of the royal family around; it's there to be a centrepiece for every sort of occasion, it's there for sea cadets, it's there for scientific research, it's almost got a sort of floating university role."

They were not proposing to use taxpayers' money, he said. "What we have already discovered is that there is a very large body of support from corporations and private individuals, foundations, here in Britain but also around the Commonwealth."

The old royal yacht, the Britannia, used by the royals for 44 years for holidays and formal entertaining, was retired in 1997 because of the annual cost of crewing and maintaining it. A tear was seen in the Queen's eye as she watched a decommissioning ceremony from the shore in Portsmouth. It is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

Emergency repairs had to be carried out last week when water poured in through a leaking door seal as the ship was moved for repainting.

The Mail reported last July that Sir Donald Gosling, who made his millions from car parks, will lend the Queen his own yacht, Leander, normally available on charter for £440,000 a week, for her diamond jubilee, but so far there has been no sign of it moored up near any of the royal residences.

Another millionaire ship owner, Philip Morrell, is loaning his Thames cruiser, Spirit of Chartwell, which will be transformed into a flower-decked gilt-swagged royal barge to carry the Queen and other members of the royal family for the Thames pageant on 3 June.

The proposal was sinking fast on Twitter: PatjHennessy spoke for many when he snarled: "Millions of commuters stuck on freezing @SW_Trains today thinking: what we really need is a £17bn line to Birmingham and a new royal yacht".

On the Guardian the reaction was perhaps predictable, from surprise that April Fool's Day had come early, to many agreeing with flipflap's suggestion that a few of Gove's chums "in the multi-millionaire cabinet" might like to stump up for it, to PtGuardianReader musing "Shouldnt this be the other way around? IE: The Queen celebrating her diamond jubilee with us by making a gift — from the Royal Family's wealth — to the country?"