Royal family costs taxpayers ‘half a billion a year’, claim anti-monarchists

Anti-monarchy campaigners person claimed the “true cost” of the royal household to the nationalist is much than £500 cardinal a year.

Republic, an organisation which campaigns for an elected caput of state, has published a study analysing existing data, studies and paper reports astir royal finances and concluded the monarchy costs £510 cardinal annually.

Official royal accounts released earlier this twelvemonth revealed the monarchy is to person a boost of much than £45 million, with a 53% leap successful its yearly income to much than £130 million.

How does the Government support this rhetoric of achy decisions erstwhile the royals outgo america capable to wage 18,000 NHS nurses?

Graham Smith, Republic

Soaring profits from the Crown Estate to £1.1 cardinal mean the taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, which supports the authoritative duties of the royal family, volition summation from £86.3 cardinal successful 2024/2025 to £132 cardinal successful 2025/2026.

Officials person said the summation volition beryllium utilized to assistance money the last stages of the 10-year, £369 cardinal reservicing programme, updating Buckingham Palace’s electrical cabling, plumbing and heating system.

Graham Smith, main enforcement of Republic, said: “If (Chancellor) Rachel Reeves thinks pugnacious decisions are needed successful these hard times, she needs to commencement with the royals.

“We’re being told the Budget volition beryllium painful.

“Well if that’s true, the cuts indispensable commencement astatine the top.

“How tin we speech astir cutting the wintertime substance allowance portion wasting fractional a cardinal pounds connected the royals?

“How does the Government support this rhetoric of achy decisions erstwhile the royals outgo america capable to wage 18,000 NHS nurses?

“The Sovereign Grant is spiralling retired of control, acceptable to emergence by different £45 cardinal a year.

“Yet the existent outgo of the monarchy is good implicit fractional a cardinal pounds.”

Republic claims the biggest outgo was an estimated £150 cardinal for royal information and a further estimated £96 cardinal successful “lost revenue”, the study argues, arsenic royal residences “occupied by the royal household cannot beryllium utilized to their afloat imaginable by the state”.