Royal Palace accounts fall short of cash
Mounting costs of maintaining the Royal household is leaving the Queen short of cash to balance her books
The government’s yearly payment to the
Queen of £6.5m will
fall well short of the increasing Civil List expenditure, estimated to reach
£14.4m this year, part of a dispute over royal demands for more public funding
to cover the mounting costs of the monarchy.
An investigation of the royal accounts by The Independent and
Baker Tilly has found
that, by 2011, the Queen will be unable to balance her books as the increasing
cost of maintaining the Royal Household will be more than double the £7.9m
allocated by Parliament.
However, the Government is refusing to pay more than the £15m it currently
pays for the maintenance of the Queen’s occupied palaces and is not prepared to
raise the £7.9m Civil List which pays for the monarch’s public functions.
Palace aides say that without increased funding the Queen will no longer be
able to pay for the upkeep of her palaces, which they estimate will require £32m
to refurbish and maintain over the next 10 years.
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