Over eighty per cent of the British public back the monarchy but only a third are planning to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee, finds a poll published on Sunday.

A YouGov poll for ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme reveals that while two thirds of UK citizens believe the royal institution to be in decline, 81 per cent believe the monarchy is still relevant to today's Britain.

Jubilee celebration chief, Lord Sterling, told Sky News' Sunday with Adam Boulton programme that national feeling for the Queen remained undiminished since the last commemoration in 1977.

"I think that nothing, nothing has changed since the Silver Jubilee, which I was also involved in," he said.

"Underneath, people have a deep sense of feeling of warmth, of love if you want, for the Queen and the family at large. I think this has come to the fore, without question."

Showing higher levels of popularity and trust than many national institutions, support among the under 30s, at 74 per cent, also shows the enduring character of the constitutional head of state.

A clear majority - 62 per cent - support the Queen's decision to rule until her death and 56 per cent consider the Royal Family important to the national identity.

But 41 per cent of Britons look to the monarchy to be modernised and only 32 per cent will take to the streets to celebrate 50 years of the Queen's reign.

Nearly sixty per cent told the pollsters that individual royals were too extravagant and two thirds of under 30s want the civil list cut.

And speaking to Sky News, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, backed reform to the Act of Settlement - the 301-year-old law that bars Roman Catholics and other non-Protestants from succession to the throne.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church of England and Wales told Adam Boulton "that it shouldn't be relevant to today's world, and today's Britain".

"It's not so much an act of discrimination against Roman Catholics as it is, it also it seems to me, to be discrimination against the Royal Family.

"I think that the future monarch should be able to marry who he wants. And if you're talking about Prince William, he could marry by law a Hindu, a Buddhist, anyone, but not a Catholic.

"That seems to me anomalous, and I think it should go."