Queen gets a pay rise - but which royal spends the most?

The Queen is due a pay rise this year - but the extra money is not for her travel but for the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

The Queen's official residence in London is in a bad state of repair after years of under-investment.

And MPs recently approved £369 million worth of work on the building.

It means that the Queen will take a larger chunk of the Sovereign Grant for the next 10 years.

Her Majesty's official expenditure is met from a chunk of the income from the Crown Estate - essentially loads of property including Regent Street and St James' in London.

She normally takes 15% but from next year she will take 25%.

Taken with the increase in profits from the Crown Estate, it means the Sovereign Grant for 2017-18 will jump to £76.1 million.

Buckingham Palace needs £369 million of repair works. Credit: PA

The Palace maintains the Royal Family is very cost effective.

After 3,000 official engagements in the UK and overseas, the keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Alan Reid said: "In 2016-17 the Sovereign Grant equated to a cost of 65p per person in the United Kingdom - the price of a first class stamp.

"When you consider that against what the Queen does and represents for this country, I believe it represents excellent value for money."

The Queen undertook 162 official engagements, the Duke of Edinburgh 196 and there were 65 oversea visits by members of the Royal Family.

However, the accounts do reveal some large items of expenditure: Orangery Doors at Windsor Castle at a cost of £1.2 million.

There is also the new ceiling in the Buckingham Palace State Dining Room costing £1.3 million.

Charles and Camilla took the most expensive royal trip so far this year. Credit: PA

And despite the Queen having "a word in the ear of the principle" if she deems travel costs too expensive, the royals don't travel cheap.

Prince William And Kate's trip to Bhutan cost £98,000.

While Prince Charles and Camilla's recent trip to Romania, Italy and Austria on "Cam Force One" cost £154,000 - the single most expensive tour.

Charles also took the most expensive journey by Royal Train costing £46,000 - that's £95.32 per mile.

When the Queen, Philip and Charles and Duchess went to Poundbury, Dorchester for the unveiling of a statute of the Queen Mother in October, the train trip came to £22,060.

Royal sources said the train was often the best option for safety, security and for allowing the Queen to arrive rested ready to carry out engagements.

A royal source said: "We believe that, though it's not the cheapest way to travel, it does represent many of the features that we look for in terms of safety, security, not causing disruption to lots of other people - convenience - environmental aspects it's strong on as well."

They added that only senior royals were allowed use of it and it travelled overnight so as to not to slow up other trains.