Why the royal family is set to receive an eye-watering pay increase
The members of the British royal family are set to receive a record-breaking pay increase, funded by British taxpayers.
From April 2025, the amount the royals will receive from the Sovereign Grant - funded by the UK’s public purse – will jump by a whopping £45 million (A$88 million), to £132 million ($260 million).
Not everyone is happy about this enormous pay increase, as CEO of Republic Graham Smith said that while the UK remains in the clutches of the cost of living crisis, it is not the time for such a hefty increase to one of the richest families in the world.
“This is public money, all of this money comes from the government, at a time when the government is not able to properly fund schools, hospitals police … It is scandalous,” Smith told Town & Country.
“Not only should it not be going up at all, it should be going down.”
The increase was first announced last year, with Buckingham Palace officials saying at the time that a huge chunk of that extra cash will be put towards the £369 million ($728 million) bill for long-planned, necessary Palace renovations.
The exact amount that is being allocated from this year’s Grant for the work has not been made public.
The Grant was established in 2012 in order to help the royal family pay for expenses related to their official duties, with the vast majority usually spent on property maintenance and staffing.
When the Grant first came into effect, there were many more working royals which required a larger pool of funding.
Now that the royal roster has been stripped back, royal author Richard Palmer believes the public is now “getting less for their money”.
He told Town & Country, “I do think that the monarchy in general does a good job for the country and is part of the glue that binds us all together but that doesn’t mean that as an institution, as individuals, they should be able to avoid criticism. They are not above scrutiny.”
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