Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£40M ROYAL FLUSH
Queen handed massive pay rise
THE Queen is set for a “pay rise” of almost £40million – as increases for nurses, firefighters and soldiers stay capped at 1%. The Sovereign Grant will soar £39.4million to £82.2million next year, up from £42.8million last year, after being hiked by the Tories to pay for Buckingham Palace repairs. The Royal Family splashed out £56.8million in the 12 months to March, £41.9million of which was funded by taxpayers, the rest coming from other income including property rents. Their spending rose 5.8% – double the inflation rate – from £53.7million the year before. Travel accounted for £4.5million of it, up a half a million pounds from the previous 12 months. Prince Charles’s nine-day spring trip to Romania, Italy and Austria aboard the RAF Voyager cost an estimated £154,000, the latest Sovereign Grant Report revealed. A trip aboard the Royal Train to Devon so Prince Philip – who is Captain General of the Royal Marines – could have dinner at their Stonehouse Barracks cost £18,690. Prince Charles used the luxury train for a two-day visit to Lancashire and Yorkshire, costing £46,000. Flights taken by Prince Andrew cost £115,291, including a charter plane trip to Turkey costing nearly £37,000, and the hire of a private jet in South Africa for almost £29,000. Only journeys costing more than £15,000 were itemised in the report. There were 213 helicopter journeys and 56 charter flights that cost less. Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir lan Reid said it cost everyone in the UK 65p a year. He added: “I believe it represents excellent value for money.” The taxpayerfunded grant to cover the royals’ expenses is set as a percentage of Crown Estate profits. It was 15% from 2012 until last year, when it was raised to 25% for 10 years to fund £369million repairs to the palace. That lifted the grant to £76.1million this year. It is further boosted next year by record Crown Estate profits. Prince Charles called the people of Manchester “an example” to the world as he and Camilla visited the city’s Arena, where 22 were killed in a terror attack last month. He added: “You have made us proud.”