Ker-king
King Charles III is set to for a £45 million pay rise thanks to huge profits from the crown estate.
The crown estate is the national portfolio of historical and commercial land-holding, belonging to the British monarch, and is the King’s official annual income.
However, the monarch doesn’t keep all this money. Instead, the King received 12 percent of it, known as the Sovereign Grant. This is funded by the taxpayer in exchange for the King’s surrender of the revenue from the crown estate.
The sovereign grant is then used to support the monarchy and fund its work.
And a huge boost in the estate’s profits means King Charles has landed himself a pretty decent pay-rise.
The estate recorded profits of £1.1bn for 2023-24, up from £443m the previous year. This means the sovereign fund will rise to £132m in 2025-26, up from £86m in 2024-25.
Officials have said the increase will be used to help fund the final stages of the decade-long £369 million renovation of Buckingham Palace, making sure it is completed on time and in budget.
The renovations are due to be completed by 2027.
The Guardian reports that the sovereign grant will be reviewed in 2026-27 to reassess the amount handed over to the palace and ensure it is an “appropriate level”.
The figures were revealed in Buckingham Palace’s royal accounts, which were published on Wednesday.
The accounts cover the period from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, a period that included the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla in May last year.
However, this was also a period which saw both the King and the Princess of Wales reveal they had cancer and would be taking a step back from public duties.
Sir Michael Stevens, the king’s Keeper of the Privy Purse, said the coronation had ben a “glorious moment in our national story,” but that this was then followed by “moments of personal challenge” for the royals, which “affected this year’s report in a rather different way.”
He said: “In the early part of 2024 came the sad news that both His Majesty the King and the Princess of Wales would be withdrawing from public-facing duties temporarily, to prioritise their treatment and recovery from cancer.
“This inevitably impacted on the number and nature of engagements that had been planned – though may I say how encouraging it is to see the King back performing so many public duties and, more recently, the princess similarly well enough to join the King’s Birthday Parade and the men’s Wimbledon final.”
During the year, members of the royal family carried out more than 2,300 official engagements, down from more than 2,700 the year before.
Charles undertook 464 official engagements despite his cancer diagnosis, with the queen carrying out 201, of which 103 were joint engagements.
The more than 50 per cent rise in crown estate profits was driven by proceeds from the sale of options and leases on offshore wind projects on the seabed surrounding the British Isles. The crown estate is the legal owner of the seabed, so has responsibility for auctioning wind rights.
