Thaindian News

London, Dec 5 (IANS) Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is facing a four-year pay freeze as austerity measures bite at Buckingham Palace, a media report said Monday.

Figures show the Queen, whose income has been dropping in real terms, is also on course for six successive years of cuts to funding, the Daily Express reported.

She has been hit hardest by the replacement of the 300-year-old Civil List by the Sovereign Grant, which comes in next year.

Her income will be linked to the profits from the Crown Estate, her property portfolio, which includes Regent Street in London, Windsor Great Park and more than half of Britain’s shoreline.

The new formula gives her 15 percent of the profits, which were 6.7 billion pounds last year, but it means she is not likely to see her income rise until 2016, the Express said quoting the Crown Estate office.

It had been thought the Sovereign Grant, which also replaces taxpayer funding for travel and palaces, would boost her earnings.

But in a double whammy, a Treasury briefing paper also shows that her effective pay has dropped every year since the credit crunch.

The Sovereign Grant Bill document shows it dropped from 38.3 million pounds in 2008-09 to 32.1 million pounds in the 12 months to April 2010. And it predicts her income under the new funding formula will continue to fall.

She has a 300 million pounds fortune and recently spent 500,000 pounds on a thoroughbred horse for breeding.

Buckingham Palace said Sunday that the new funding formula was “complex” and that predictions about the Queen’s income were “speculative” and would depend on the Crown Estate’s performance.

There will be no extra funding from the taxpayer for the court of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Clarence House has confirmed Prince Charles will support William and Kate until Charles becomes the King, the Express said.