Global News Post Fastest Global News Portal
Related Articles
Royal correspondent
PA MediaPublic investment for the Royal Household has tripled in genuine phrases since 2012, respectable figures display, with the upward push pushed in large part through upkeep and construction paintings at Buckingham Palace.
The Sovereign Grant, which supplies taxpayer enhance for the monarchy, was once presented in 2012 at £31m in keeping with yr. That has now risen to £132m, knowledge from the House of Commons Library displays, and as soon as inflation has been taken under consideration, that represents a few threefold building up.
The grant rose 53% in April, from £86.3m to £132.1m. Royal aides say this was once as a result of a Buckingham Palace construction challenge and the grant will come down once more, including that the monarchy represents excellent price.
Lord Turnbull, a crossbench peer and a former Cabinet Secretary, referred to as the way in which the grant was once calculated “complete and utter nonsense” however stated that the funds is not prime when put next with different presidential heads of state.
The Sovereign Grant supplies investment for the respectable tasks of the monarchy. In the latest figures, for 2023-24, the most important pieces had been belongings upkeep and team of workers payroll, with smaller quantities for trip and hospitality and home tasks.
The research through the House of Commons Library displays how a lot the Sovereign Grant has risen through the years – the usage of a measure that takes under consideration inflation, with comparisons the usage of 2023-24 values as a benchmark.
Using that measure, the Sovereign Grant in 2012-13 was once price £41.5m – which rose to nearly £100m in 2018-19, to hide renovations in Buckingham Palace, after which rose in 2025-26 to being price £129.3m, once more for paintings on Buckingham Palace.
A Bank of England inflation calculation additionally displays the grant’s price having trebled since 2012, even if Buckingham Palace makes use of a separate determine which is relatively under a threefold real-terms building up.
Buckingham Palace says the present figures are upper as a result of a 10-year, £369m challenge to modernise amenities within the Palace, together with cabling, plumbing, wiring and lifts. It’s a challenge that the National Audit Office says has been well-run and delivers “good value for money”.
The Palace says it is deceptive to match this yr’s figures with previous ranges of grants. They say the large building up is because of the component of the grant that can pay for Buckingham Palace construction works, moderately than the “core” grant for different working prices.
“The Sovereign Grant remained virtually flat for five years from 2020, during a period of high inflation. The majority of the increase in this year’s Sovereign Grant is to fund the Buckingham Palace Reservicing Programme, which is ensuring that the Palace, a national asset, is accessible and protected from fire and flood,” stated a Palace spokesperson.
“A temporary increase in the grant across two years was approved to provide the remainder of the funding agreed in 2016 for this reservicing work. It has always been anticipated that the level of the Sovereign Grant will drop once the project is completed,” stated the spokesperson.
This may just imply taxpayer investment decreasing after 2027.
PA MediaThe sharp building up over the last decade has been all through tough years for public budget, together with classes of austerity and tight controls over budgets.
For instance, a file from the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed that public spending on schooling in England went down through 11% in genuine phrases between 2010-11 and 2023-24, even if the IFS says that it’s tough to match such giant multi-billion budgets with adjustments in slightly smaller quantities such because the Sovereign Grant.
Before the Sovereign Grant was once presented, state investment for the monarchy got here via a mixture of grants, executive division spending and a “civil list” cost.
Figures from the House of Commons Library, going again to 1995, display the pre-Sovereign Grant totals as not up to than they’re nowadays – as an example, the usage of 2023-24 values, it was once price £67m in 2000 and £56m in 2005.
The Sovereign Grant was once presented as a extra “modern, transparent” manner of bringing in combination royal investment, offered to MPs in 2011 as being more likely to scale back the royal source of revenue.
The grant is in keeping with a proportion of the earnings of the unbiased belongings and landowning trade, the Crown Estate. The grant isn’t from the Crown Estate, it comes from the Treasury, however the Crown Estate is used as a benchmark.
Sovereign Grant was once to begin with set at 15% of Crown Estate earnings, which rose to 25% to hide the price of renovating Buckingham Palace.
It’s now being diminished to 12%. But as a result of larger earnings for the Crown Estate from promoting rentals for offshore wind farms, the true money quantity has risen sharply, as a result of it is a proportion in keeping with a miles larger overall.
The building up within the Sovereign Grant’s price is blamed through former Lib Dem Home Office minister Norman Baker, a distinguished critic of royal budget, on what he calls the “completely absurd” manner it is calculated and “weak-kneed” governments that do not need to problem it.
“The Royal Family has been very efficient in persuading the public purse to keep coughing up more money,” he says.
“Buckingham Palace has been used again and again to justify the increases.
“We’re informed public budget are tight, we will be able to’t come up with the money for a iciness gas allowance, however we will be able to pay for an building up for the Royal Family. It’s utterly unsuitable.”
PA MediaLord Turnbull, a former Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary at the Treasury in the 1990s and 2000s, is also critical of the way the grant is calculated. He says successive governments have used the Crown Estate calculation as a convenient way of avoiding debate and stopping a “lot of bolshy backbenchers moaning about the price of the monarchy”.
He says it would be much better to have a straightforward grant to pay for the monarchy, which could be debated on its own merits.
But he also says it’s a “purple herring” to focus on the headline increase in the Sovereign Grant, when that figure has been driven by work to preserve Buckingham Palace, rather than underlying running costs. He says that if you have a monarchy it has to be properly funded. “You both have one or you do not,” says Lord Turnbull.
Pauline Maclaran, a royal commentator from Royal Holloway, University of London, says the monarchy “generates a substantial amount of cash and goodwill.”
This is often seen in terms of boosting tourism and promoting business links, but Prof Maclaran says increasingly it needs to recognise the impact of royal “comfortable energy”.
US President Trump is a self-professed fan of King Charles and if those warm feelings helped with UK and US trade and tariff negotiations the benefits would hugely outweigh any annual costs of the monarchy, says Prof Maclaran.
PA MediaBut the royals can’t be immune to questions about finances, she says: “The public needs to understand if they are of price.”
Royal expert Richard Palmer says this year’s increase has “raised eyebrows”.
“Of route the pinnacle of state and people who enhance him want to be funded correctly, however so do different portions of the state – the well being provider, faculties, the army, for instance,” says Mr Palmer.
Royal sources say there is transparency and funding is subject to the approval of Parliament. The Royal Trustees overseeing the grant are the prime minister, chancellor and the keeper of the privy purse, who looks after the monarch’s finances.
You can dig into the accounts and see from 2023-24 that the royals spent over £1m on helicopter flights, there was an electricity bill of £2.2m and that travel for the Duke of Kent over three days to attend regimental events in Scotland cost more than £23,000.
There are also details of what the monarchy provides in a year – including hosting 400 events, inviting 105,000 guests to receptions, garden parties and official lunches. There were also 2,300 public engagements, supporting charities and good causes.
There are national and international events, including state visits which help to promote UK trade. There’s a constitutional role, such as the state opening of Parliament and regular meetings with the prime minister.
Republic, a group campaigning for an elected head of state, have argued that other costs need to be included, such as security, which is not covered by the Sovereign Grant.
They also want the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall to count as public funding, rather than private incomes for the King and Prince of Wales. A report from the group claims that the total cost of the monarchy is about £510m per year.
Opinion polls suggest the monarchy remains popular, with a YouGov survey in February 2025 suggesting 55% viewed the monarchy positively compared with 36% who saw it negatively.
But there is less certainty about funding. Another YouGov survey in December 2024 suggested strong public opposition to government money being spent on Buckingham Palace – by 56% to 29%.
And there are divisions by age groups – with 74% of the over-65s thinking the royals are good value for money, compared with 44% of 25 to 49 year olds.
