The King is set to receive an extra £80 million from the taxpayer over two years after a recalculation of the funding formula for the Sovereign Grant yesterday.
His £86.3 million annual funding from the Government will remain flat for a fourth consecutive year next year but is then forecast to be boosted by just under £40 million in both 2025 and 2026.
The 74-year-old monarch will benefit from a boom in offshore wind farms under a funding formula that pegs the Sovereign Grant to the equivalent of a percentage of the Crown Estate property empire’s profits.
That formula is to be cut from 25 percent to 12 percent after a review completed yesterday.
But King Charles will still benefit because the Crown Estate, which owns rights to the seabed up to 12 miles out, is expected to see its annual profits in England, Wales and Northern Ireland soar from £442.6 million in 2022-23 to over £1 billion in 2023-24 and 2024-25 thanks to fees paid by offshore wind farm companies.
Buckingham Palace wrote to the Government in January to say the King did not wish to benefit from the boom in wind farms but he will now in part for at least two years.
The extra money will be used to finish a 10-year, £369 million refurbishment of Buckingham Palace by March 2027 and deal with a backlog of other property repairs at royal residences before the Sovereign Grant formula is calculated again.
The changes were agreed after a long overdue five-yearly review of palace finances by the three royal trustees – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, and the King’s treasurer, Sir Michael Stevens, the Keeper of the Privy.
Mr Hunt said the monarchy was a source of “immense national pride and constitutional strength, widely admired around the world”.
He added: “For almost 300 years, Kings and Queens have surrendered the profits from the Crown Estate to the British people, and in return the Government has provided a fraction of that to properly support the King in undertaking his official duties.
“The new Sovereign Grant rate reflects the unexpected significant increase in the Crown Estate’s net profits from offshore wind developments, while providing enough funding for official business as well as essential property maintenance, including completing the 10 year reservicing of Buckingham Palace.”
The royal trustees report predicted the Crown Estate profits will rise in 2023-24 to £1.04 billion and in 2024-25 to £1.05 billion, meaning the Sovereign Grant could be £124.8 million in 2025-26 and £126 million in 2026-27 – a jump of nearly £38.5 million and then £39.7 million, compared to the current rate.
If the 25 percent formula had continued, the monarchy would have received £260 million a year.
King Charles, as the reigning monarch, nominally owns the Crown Estate, whose assets include Regent Street and other parts of London’s West End. But in practice it is an independent property company created to make money for the Government.
In 1760 George III agreed to surrender the revenues in return for a fixed payment from the Government as a symbolic gesture recognising how since 1688 monarchs had gradually handed over responsibility for paying for the costs of the state to Parliament.
Earlier monarchs had to use revenue from the Crown lands to help pay for the civil service, defence, and the national debt but their successors would long have been bankrupt if that had continued: the Crown Estate’s £442.6 million profit is dwarfed by the estimated £1,189 billion of UK public spending this year.
