Queen’s pay could hit £45m thanks to Crown Estate

THE Queen could be in line for a 6.5 per cent increase in her taxpayer-funded income to £45.6 million – amounting to a 47 per cent increase in the space of just five years.

Rising profits for the Crown Estate – on which Her Majesty’s income is calculated – mean that she will receive £42.8 million in the current financial year, up from £40.1 million last year.

That figure could rise yet higher after the Crown Estate announced bumper profits of £304.1 million for 2015-16. Under the terms of the Sovereign Grant, which replaced the Civil List in 2012, the Queen receives the equivalent of 15 per cent of Crown Estate profits from two years previously, which would amount to £45.6 million for the 2017-18 financial year.

However, the funding formula will be reviewed this year by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Alan Reid, meaning the 15 per cent figure could be cut. It cannot, however, go below the £42.8 million being paid to the Queen this year. In 2012-13 the Queen was given £31 million by the taxpayer, meaning her income from the public purse will have gone up by 47 per cent by 2017-18 if the formula stays the same.

Buckingham Palace said the Royal family now costs 62p per year for every citizen of the United Kingdom, up from 58p last year. A spokesman also said two thirds of the increase in the Queen’s income was being spent on reducing a backlog of repairs to royal palaces. The Queen’s total income for 2015-16 was £54 million, comprising £40.1 million from the taxpayer and £13.9 million from property rental and charges for using royal buildings and facilities for functions. Total spending was £53.7 million, including £19.5 million on staff wages, £16.3 million to maintain the royal palaces and other buildings, and £4 million on travel.

Figures released by Buckingham Palace showed that the most expensive journey by a member of the Royal family last year was the Prince of Wales’s visit to the Balkans with the Duchess of Cornwall by charter flight in March, which cost £94,409. Sources also disclosed that the royal train’s days are numbered. Engineers are looking at ways of extending the life of the rolling stock, but said that it could be scrapped in “five to ten years”. The train costs around £600,000 a year to maintain.

Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales’s income rose by 3.1 per cent as his aides admitted the effects of the Brexit could affect his Duchy of Cornwall income in future years.