Cost of King Charles's coronation fuels outrage

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: The Guardian
22 Nov 2024 10:30
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The anti-monarchy group Republic condemns the spending of King Charles's coronation as “obscene".

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King Charles delivers the King's Speech in the House of Lords, on July 17, 2024. (AFP)

Official figures have revealed that the coronation of King Charles in May 2023 cost taxpayers at least £72 million. The cost of policing the event amounted to £21.7 million, while the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) incurred an additional £50.3 million in expenses.

Around 20 million people in the UK watched the coronation ceremony, which took place at Westminster Abbey, significantly fewer than the 29 million who tuned in for Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in 2022. The ceremony was attended by global dignitaries, and a concert at Windsor Castle followed the next night.

The DCMS's annual report described the coronation as a “once-in-a-generation moment” that brought the country together in celebration and showcased the UK to the world.

'An extravagance we simply didn’t have to have'

The anti-monarchy group Republic condemned the spending as “obscene”. Graham Smith, CEO of Republic, said as quoted by The Guardian, “I would be very surprised if £72 million was the whole cost.”

In addition to the Home Office’s policing costs and DCMS expenses, he pointed out that other agencies such as the Ministry of Defense, Transport for London, fire brigades, and local councils also incurred costs related to the coronation, with some estimates putting the total expenditure between £100 million and £250 million.

Smith added, “But even that kind of money – £72 million – is incredible. It’s a huge amount of money to spend on one person’s parade when there was no obligation whatsoever in the constitution or in law to have a coronation, and when we were facing cuts to essential services.”

He further criticized the event as an unnecessary extravagance, saying, “It was a parade that Charles insisted on at huge expense to the taxpayer, and this is on top of the huge inheritance tax bill he didn’t [have to] pay, on top of the £500 million-a-year cost of the monarchy.”

Smith also highlighted the 1993 agreement that allowed inheritance passed from “sovereign to sovereign” to avoid the 40% inheritance tax on estates valued over £325,000.

He concluded, “It was an extravagance we simply didn’t have to have. It was completely unnecessary and a waste of money in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis in a country that is facing huge amounts of child poverty. When kids are unable to afford lunches at school, to spend over £70 million on this parade is obscene.”