The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has backed the publicly funded £369m refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

The republican Labour MP declared the Queen’s main residence a national monument and said no government would allow it to fall into disrepair.

“It’s a national monument ... national heritage. It’s going to be treated that way, in the same way as the House of Commons. When you have these old buildings they have to be looked after,” McDonnell told LBC radio.

Asked if the Queen should pay for the work, instead of the money coming from a 66% increase in the sovereign grant, he said: “She may well consider that. I am a republican, but when it comes to decisions like that I think they are left to her.”

The Treasury announced a 66% increase in the annual sovereign grant on Friday to meet the cost of the 10-year refit, which will include the replacement of decades-old electrical wiring, lead piping and boilers at the central London palace.

An online petition urging the royal family to fund the refurbishment of the palace privately has collected more than 50,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.

Mark Johnson said in his petition, addressed to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, that the royal family should pay for the revamp themselves.



A copywriter and former journalist, he said it was the first time he had done anything like this, but that he had been outraged by the timing of the news.

“I am all for protecting Buckingham Palace, but at a time when the public purse is so pressured, and on a day that temperatures dropped overnight, when the elderly are freezing in their homes and children have damp mould on their bedroom walls, to fund it publicly is something out of a Charles Dickens novel,” he said.

”It’s up to the royal household how they fund it privately, I don’t think it will be hard to find the money, not as hard as it would be for the NHS to fund.”





The crown estate, not including inherited private residences such as Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle, is worth £11bn and made a £304m profit in its most recent financial year.

One petition signatory wrote: “This decision spits in the face of the majority of people in this country.”

The occupied royal palaces are held in trust for the nation and are not owned by the Queen, with the cost of maintaining them borne by the taxpayer.

Whitehall claimed it earned a multibillion-pound boost from the 500,000 people who visited Buckingham Palace during the summer and the millions who came to see the changing of the guard.

The fire at Windsor Castle in 1992 resulted in a five-year restoration, the Treasury said, and rectifying similar damage to the palace would cost up to £250m for a single wing.

The sovereign grant for the royal family is equal to 15% of the crown estate’s annual profits, which were £45.6m most recently. This will increase to a 25% share until the renovation finishes in 2027, after which it will revert to the lower amount.

A Treasury spokesman said: “If there was a fire, it would cost the taxpayer a lot more than this and the grant is not for the royal family’s personal use.”

When asked why the renovation could not be funded by private assets, he pointed out that the duchy of Cornwall’s revenue already went to private charities, adding: “The monarchy can’t sell property because it’s managed by the crown estate commissioners.”