British government decides to cut royal family's budget

The British government has decided to cut the proportion of funds going to the royal family from the Crown Estate.

Royal family faces cut in funding after King Charles III's big statement. The reduction in the sovereign grant is revealed in a review by the royal trustees published on Thursday.

The funding provided to support the Firm's official duties will be reduced to 12 per cent of the Crown Estate’s net profits next year.

The Firm receives a sovereign grant to cover the costs of running their households and for official travel expenses, which is based on surplus revenue of the Crown Estate.

The Royal Household’s budget will reportedly be £24mn lower in 2024 than it would have been, and £130mn lower in each of the two following years. The decision comes after King Charles III said he wanted bumper windfarm profits to go to the "wider public good".

Money saved from slashing the grant "will instead be used to fund vital public services, for the benefit of the nation", the Treasury said.

The newly crowned King, 74, announced in January that the royal family would redirect profits from the Estate’s new and lucrative wind farm deals to the "wider public good".

The grant, which last year was worth 86.3 million pounds ($111 million), is typically based on 15% of Crown Estate profits but has been temporarily increased to 25% to pay for extensive refurbishment work at Buckingham Palace.

However, new deals for offshore wind farms are expected to see the Estate profits surge by 900 million pound a year.

The system for financing the royal family was overhauled in 2011 by then prime minister David Cameron. The sovereign grant, which links royal funding to Crown Estate profits, replaced a fixed annual expenditure approved by MPs and reviewed each decade.

The Crown Estate is a public corporation that manages the monarch’s land and property portfolio. It is run independently of the monarch and the government.