By Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19020908

The latest Sovereign Grant report shows that royal expenditure went up in the last financial year.

In the period between April 2022 and April 2023, a total of £107.5 million was spent, a 5% rise compared to the year before.

The Sovereign Grant covered £86.3 million of that. The rest was taken from reserve funds.

The increased total reflects a time described by Sir Michael Stevens, Keeper of the Privy Purse, as ”a year of grief, change and celebration, the like of which our nation has not witnessed for seven decades.”

The period in this report includes the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II as well as the change of reign to King Charles III.

The Jubilee resulted in costs of £700,000 while Buckingham Palace covered an outlay of £1.6 million related to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.

The costs this year also include ongoing redevelopment works at Buckingham Palace.

The report also shows that the Royal Family cut back on other property maintenance and heating costs as inflation rose.

The Sovereign Grant is paid from the Crown Estate. All its profits go to the Treasury which then releases a percentage of them annually to the Royal Family. The money is used by The King and members of the Royal Family to cover their working expenses.

The Sovereign Grant report can be read in full at the official website of the Royal Family.