Flights taken by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their controversial Caribbean tour cost UK taxpayers more than £226,000.
This figure is part of the royal accounts for 2021 and 2022 which were released on Thursday.
The total travel bill for the royal family’s various trips came to £4.5m.
These expenses are funded through the Sovereign Grant, which is paid for by the taxpayer. The travel bill has increased by £1.3m year-on-year, mostly due to the lifting of lockdown restrictions.
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s trip in March to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, during which the couple were heavily criticised for images that “smacked of colonialism”, saw the pair travel by charter jet, and their staff by scheduled flights for a planning trip, at a cost of £226,383.
Their Caribbean tour was the most expensive royal tour this year, followed by Prince Charles’ visit to Barbados which cost £138,000 for his charter flight.
Further figures released today show that the taxpayer-funded sovereign grant totalled £86.3m, including £51.8m for “core funding” and £34.5m for the revamp of Buckingham Palace.
It found that 2,300 engagements were undertaken by the royal family in the UK and overseas. This included 201 by the Queen, an increase from the 113 engagements Her Majesty undertook during the 2020-2021 year.
A total of £1.3m was spent on housekeeping and hospitality for the royal household, and 491 full-time staff were paid by the Sovereign Grant, which totalled £23.7m.
Prince Charles also footed a bill for the Cambridge’s activities, totalling £4.4m. Charles received £23m of private annual income from his Duchy of Cornwall estate in the past year.
Charles’ bill for his children’s activities decreased by £1.2m from the 2019-2020 year as he no longer funds the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who stepped down as senior members of the royal family in 2020.
The report also revealed that Charles pays £5.9m in tax, £107,000 to run his London office and Clarence House, and £3.3m in non-official expenditure including salary costs of personal staff.
