The Culture Secretary has said that around 250,000 people went through Westminster Hall for the Queen's lying-in-state. But Michelle Donelan said that her department was currently trying to work out the exact number.
She told Sky News: "Over 250,000 people went through Parliament. We are just crunching the final numbers so that's an approximate figure at the moment."
This compares with some 200,000 people who lined up to visit the Queen Mother when she lay in state in Westminster Hall in 2002.
Ms Donelan also said that most British people would see the cost of the Queen’s funeral as “money well spent”, but could not put a figure on what that cost might be. Pressed on Sky News about the cost of the funeral on Monday, she said: “I’m not sure of the exact costings but as I say, I think the British public would argue that that was money well spent.
"You saw so many thousands out there and I don’t think anybody can suggest that our late monarch didn’t deserve that send-off, given the duty and the selfless service that she committed to over 70 years.”
She said it would be “downright preposterous” to suggest otherwise.
“It was great sense of the community coming together. I always think of our late monarch as the glue that brought society together,” she told the broadcaster.
