The Royal family's total travel bill for official duties cost the taxpayer £4.5m in 2021-22, including £226,000 for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's flights for their controversial Caribbean tour.
William and Kate's trip in March to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, during which the couple were heavily criticised for images that smacked of "colonialism", saw the pair travel by charter jet, and their staff by scheduled flights for a planning trip, was the most expensive official royal tour of 2021-22, accounts just released have shown.
The total travel bill, funded by the taxpayer through the Sovereign Grant, rose by £1.3 million - or around 41% - from the previous financial year as the Royals began to embark on overseas tours again once Covid restrictions were lifted
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The Prince of Wales's charter flight to Barbados to mark the country's transition to a republic, and his staff's scheduled air travel for the event, came to more than £138,000, although Royal aides revealed that future king Charles had personally spearheaded a switch to the use of sustainable aviation fuel on Royal flights in a bid to combat the environmental impact. As a result, the ministerial RAF Voyager jet - used by the Royal family and the Government - is now run on sustainable aviation fuel.
A source said Charles was working to reconcile the conflict between his responsibilities travelling around world on Royal duties and his role as an environmental champion. The prince is "pretty allergic" to travelling by helicopter and will always "raise an eyebrow" and object when the mode of transport is suggested, the source said.
But despite that, Charles took a charter plane and a helicopter for his trip to Belfast and around Northern Ireland in May 2021, at a cost of more than £29,600, and he and the Duchess of Cornwall also flew by helicopter in July on their annual visit to Wales, with the bill coming to £15,920. Charles also took a helicopter trip for the 70-mile journey from London to RAF Brize Norton in November ahead of his official visit to Jordan and Egypt. In all, some 179 official helicopter journeys were made by the Royal family in 2021-2022 at a cost of over £906,000.
"There is this rigorous process that you only get to top-end travel options if every other option fails," the source said. "If the recommendation goes to the Prince of Wales, he will raise an eyebrow and say 'go through this again'. The Prince of Wales is pretty allergic to using helicopters."
The Queen's trip to Scotland on the royal train for Royal Week in June 2021 cost more than £46,400, while William and Kate's charter flight and helicopter journey for a visit to Scotland in May 2021 amounted to nearly £45,200.
The figures show that the Royal family received £86.3 million from taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, made up of £51.8 million for the "core" funding and an extra £34.5 million for the reservicing of Buckingham Palace. This equates to £1.29 per person in the UK, or 77p per person of the "core" part of the Sovereign Grant for official duties - not including funds for the long-term Buckingham Palace works.
However, official expenditure rose by £14.9m - or 17% - to £102.4 million from £87.5 million in 2020/2021, including:
- £23.7 million on 491- full-time equivalent staff paid for from the Sovereign Grant;
- £1.3 million for the cost of housekeeping and hospitality for the royal household;
- £4.5million for official Royal travel;
- Official costs of £107,000 for Charles's London office and official residence Clarence House;
- £63.9 million spent on property maintenance - up £14.4 million or 29% from £49.5 million in 2020-21.
Other costs revealed in the accounts include £4.4 million paid by the Prince of Wales for the Cambridges' activities, plus Charles's other expenditure including his capital expenditure and transfer to reserves. Charles no longer pays for the Sussexes, which decreased his bill by £1.2 million over two years since 2019-2020 when Harry and Meghan were full-time working royals.
Charles's received £23 million annual private income from the Duchy of Cornwall landed estate, up from £20.4 million in 2020-21 and spent £3.3 million in non-official expenditure for himself and his family including salary costs of personal staff and a proportion of costs of gardeners and estate workers and the cost of Highgrove and Birkhall. His tax bill was £5.9m.
Despite being in her 90s, the Queen carried out 201 official engagements in the last financial year, up by 88 compared to the previous year, when the country was in lockdown. Other members of the Royal family carried out almost 2,300 official engagements between them, compared to 1,470 the previous year.
The accounts also recorded that 9.6% of staff working for Buckingham Palace were from ethnic minority backgrounds. This is an increase on 8.5% the previous year, but doesn't quite hit the 10% target. Clarance House has 10.6% of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, while Kensington Palace has 13.6%.
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