Royal family under fire after new claims

Royal family has faced new backlash as anti-monarchy campaigners have revealed the “true cost” of the Firm.

Republic, an organisation which campaigns for an elected head of state, has claimed the "cost" of the royal family to the public is more than £500 million a year.

Graham Smith, CEO of Republic, according to Express UK, said: “If (Chancellor) Rachel Reeves thinks tough decisions are needed in these difficult times, she needs to start with the royals.

“We’re being told the Budget will be painful. Well if that’s true, the cuts must start at the top. 

"How can we talk about cutting the winter fuel allowance while wasting half a billion pounds on the royals?

“How does the Government defend this rhetoric of painful decisions when the royals cost us enough to pay 18,000 NHS nurses?

“Yet the true cost of the monarchy is well over half a billion pounds.”

The anti-monarchy group claims the biggest cost was an estimated £150 million for royal security and a further estimated £96 million in “lost revenue”, the report argues, as royal residences “occupied by the royal family cannot be used to their full potential by the state”.

On the other hand, the monarchy is to receive a boost of more than £45 million, with a 53 percent jump in its annual income to more than £130 million according to official royal accounts released earlier this year.

The increase, according to officials, will be used to help fund the final stages of the 10-year, £369 million reservicing programme, updating Buckingham Palace’s electrical cabling, plumbing and heating system.