Research by Republic Scotland has this week shown that the Queen’s visit to Scotland in July this year cost the taxpayer a quarter of a million pounds.
Republic Scotland, part of the UK wide Republic campaign network, which campaigns for the abolition of the monarchy, carried out the research using freedom of information requests.
The total is a combination of the individual totals for each of the five local authorities visited by the Queen. The most spent by an individual authority was £149,207, by Glasgow City Council, despite the Queen spending less than a day in the city.
Republic Scotland chair, Paul Leinster said: “At a time when local authorities are freezing wages, cutting staff and cutting back on services, it is beyond belief that so much money is being spent entertaining our unelected head of state. The figure for Glasgow in particular is astounding, given the relatively short length of time the Queen spent in the city.”
According to figures published by Buckingham Palace earlier, the official cost of the royal family rose in 2011 by £200,000, to £32.3m.
However, the cost to local authorities of hosting visits by members of the royal family is not included this. Once this figure, security, other expenses and loss of income are included, Republic estimates the true cost of the monarchy to be around £200,000,000.
The breakdown for each local authority is:
- Glasgow – £149,207
- Edinburgh – £21,169
- Perth and Kinross – £32,863
- Inverclyde – £38,000
- West Dunbartonshire – £10,861
- Total – £252,100
