THE cost of the monarchy since 2020 would be enough to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of junior doctors in Scotland, analysis by The National has found.
Totalling the cost of the sovereign grant, the platinum jubilee and an estimated cost of the coronation shows that at least £404.2 million has been spent on the royals in the last three years.
The “unseemly” sum is enough to pay the salaries of 13,755 foundation doctors on year one in Scotland. It comes after Scottish junior doctors voted to strike over pay on Friday.
What is the sovereign grant fund?
The sovereign grant funds day-to-day spending to facilitate the “official duties” of the monarch and the maintenance of the occupied royal palaces, like Buckingham Palace.
In the 2020 to 2021 financial year, this was £87.5m, including spending on staffing, £3.2m on travel and nearly £50m on property maintenance.
This rose to £102.4m the following financial year, while a sovereign grant document signed off by the Prime Minister and Chancellor for the year 2023 to 2023 showed a reduction to £86.3m.
The additional costs of the last few years
Rishi Sunak additionally committed £28m for platinum jubilee celebrations in the 2021 Budget and a source quoted in The Sun last month said they expected the coronation to cost double that of the Queen’s in 1953 owing to higher security costs – putting the figure at around £100m.
The political reaction
Republican politicians accused the UK Government of giving “the public cheque book to the royals” while families struggle to cope with soaring bills and prices.
Tommy Sheppard, the SNP MP for Edinburgh East, said: “Once again, the public are being invited to finance a celebration of unearned wealth organised in a feudal hierarchy.
"There is something particularly unseemly about the extravagance we are expected to fund while ordinary folk struggle to make ends meet.
“The monarchy has long been a symbol of inequality and privilege; such symbols have never been less welcome.
"The royals really ought to be more cautious about celebrating their position at this time. It might just backfire in the court of public opinion”.
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said: “We are in the worst cost of living crisis for decades, but the UK Government is spending over a hundred million pounds on these lavish celebrations and extravagant golden carriages.
“Whilst people across the United Kingdom are struggling to pay their bills the UK Government have opened the public cheque book to the royals.
“The polls show an overwhelming indifference to the monarchy in Scotland, with more and more people questioning why we need this extravagant and archaic form of governance. We can do much better.
“We can have a Scottish republic built on the principles of equality, solidarity and liberty, and that embraces diversity and peace.”
Chris McEleny, the general secretary of the Alba Party, said: “Today the classes will gather in London to pay homage and swear allegiance to King Charles whilst in Glasgow the national movement will gather to demand our right self-determination for our people and our nation.
“It is obscene that in the midst of a cost of living crisis we have pensioners freezing in their homes in energy-rich Scotland whilst hundreds of millions of pounds are being plundered by the royal family.
“They live in palaces, are being paraded in gold carriages but yet live off of the taxpayer.
“It isn’t so much a tale of two cities but rather a story of two possible futures for Scotland: more of the same unequal Britain, personified by the Westminster and London establishment cloaked in all their pageantry at the coronation; or a Scotland that takes its future into its own hands.”
