THE multimillion-pound cost to the taxpayer of the Queen’s funeral has been revealed by the Treasury.
The state funeral and related events cost an estimated £162 million, according to the Exchequer.
The Scottish Government spent nearly £19m – the highest figure of any devolved administration – on associated events, including the Queen’s lying in rest at St Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh.
Costs incurred by the Scottish Government – and the other devolved administrations – were “fully” reimbursed, the Treasury said.
The biggest costs were covered by the Home Office which spent £74m and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which forked out £57m.
John Glen, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said the Government’s priorities in the wake of the Queen’s death were to ensure “these events ran smoothly and with the appropriate level of dignity, while at all times ensuring the safety and security of the public”.
The Department for Transport spent £2.5m on the Queen’s funeral and associated events, the Foreign Office £2m and the Ministry of Defence just short of £3m.
Combined, the Welsh and Northern Irish governments spent around £4m.
It dwarves the cost of the Queen Mother’s funeral in 2002, which was said to have cost £5.4m and is likely to have been more expensive affair than that of Prince Philip’s which was a pared back ceremony because of Covid restrictions.
The event, held on September 19 last year, came after an official period of “national mourning”.
Thousands of people filed through Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament during that period to see Queen Elizabeth lying in state.
