UK Monarchy costs us at least £150M says REPUBLIC

BBC NEWS reports the royals cost us £37M a year

Republic has today challenged Buckingham Palace to come clean on its
finances, due to be reported at the end of this month. For the past few
years the palace has attempted to distract people from the full cost of the
monarchy by talking in terms of ‘pence per person’.

Spokesperson Graham Smith said:

“The palace spin is that the monarchy costs a little over 61p per person.
This is a shameful piece of propaganda – no government department would get
away with justifying waste by dividing the cost by the entire British
population. By that logic MPs salaries and expenses can equally be
justified as costing us just £3 per person per year.”

“The palace will tell us that they cost around £37m a year, but this
ignores security costs, unpaid taxes and costs to local councils for royal
visits. The real figure is at least £150m a year.”

“The big question we need to ask the palace is ‘what’s not included?’
Royal security – much of it unnecessary – is estimated to cost over £100m
a year, royal visits around the UK can cost local councils as much as £60k
a trip.”

“Comparable European presidents cost as little as £1.5m a year.”

NOTES

Full details of our calculations can be found at
http://www.republic.org.uk/royalcosts

A visit to Romsey by the Queen last year cost the Romsey Town Council more
than £58,000, including £5000 spent on a new toilet for the Queen.

Total salary and expenses bill for 646 MPs is £155m a year, compared to
£150m a year for 15 working royals.

The Crown Estates do not offset the cost of the monarchy as the Crown
Estates would remain state property if the monarchy were abolished. It is
not the property of the Windsor family – see
http://www.republic.org.uk/royalcosts for details.