King Charles is facing mounting pressure as the £138m sovereign grant goes to the royal family this year, with calls for radical reforms over the rising cost of royal maintenance.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is being urged to reconsider the grant, which has risen by almost £50m in three years, mainly to fund £369m of Buckingham Palace renovations over a decade.
While anti-corruption campaigners are calling for greater transparency after Keir Starmer’s tsar criticized former royal incomes seen as “exorbitant” charity rents.
Baroness Margaret Hodge, the government’s anti-corruption campaigner, marked the Andrew scandal as a turning point and warned that opaque private income could weaken the monarchy at a sensitive time.
Former Labor minister Lord George Foulkes repeated the call for reform, pointing to Queen Camilla’s helicopter ride to a race day as evidence that the royals seem increasingly out of touch as Britons grapple with cost of living pressures, homelessness and poverty.
“It really needs a more radical overhaul than in the past,” he said.
The Treasury confirmed the government grant is under a five-year review, but there are no plans to scrap it entirely.
It was introduced by then Chancellor George Osborne in 2011 and funds the King’s official duties, including staff pay, travel and palace maintenance.
Last year, £41.2m was spent on property maintenance, £4.7m on travel and £475,000 on 141 helicopter flights, including £80,000 on charters and flights across Northern Ireland.
MPs are also scrutinizing the Crown Estate amid investigations into Andrew’s use of the Royal Lodge and whether other properties are delivering fair value to taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the King and Prince William continue to earn private income from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, along with inherited wealth and investments.
Over 70 years, these estates have generated around £1.2 billion for the royals.
The Duchy of Cornwall’s property sales rose from £3.3m a year (2010-2020) to £11m a year in the following four years, although they remain exempt from capital gains tax.
