THE British royal family is to demand a pay rise from the taxpayer to fill a looming £40m hole in its finances.

Queen Elizabeth wants an extra £4m a year to pay for repairs and improvements to her homes, including Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and St James's Palace. Courtiers may also request an increase in civil list payments to cover rising costs of running the royal family, which hit £41.5m during the 2008-09 financial year — an increase of £1.5m.

The plan to demand extra cash from the taxpayer emerged as the annual report of the royal public finances revealed the royal family spent £6.5m on travel alone last year. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall spent £33,400 on a private jet to visit the Bushmills whiskey distillery and other engagements in Northern Ireland.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh spent £14,515 to travel one way from Euston to Liverpool on the royal train — a journey that costs £74 first class when booked in advance on Virgin Trains; and Prince Andrew spent £55,269 on a one-way flight from London to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to co-chair the World Economic Forum. The Queen also spent £300,000 relaunching her website, and £8m on the upkeep of Buckingham Palace — an increase of 36 per cent on the previous year.

The annual publication of the cost of the monarchy sparked fresh calls for the royal family to cover their own expenses by selling tickets to visit their palaces and for greater scrutiny of their spending, in particular on travel, where details of any trip costing under £10,000 are kept secret.

“Now is not a good time to be asking for more money,” said Richard Bacon MP, who sits on the House of Commons public accounts committee, which this month reviewed palace finances. “They should be looking at what could be done to open up the occupied palaces and their priceless treasures to the public and in the process generate more revenue.” He said that if the White House could open for most of the year then Buckingham Palace should too.

This year, the palace will only open from the end of July to the end of September.

Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state, said the real cost of the monarchy worked out at more than four times the amount quoted in Monday's accounts, once the hidden cost of security, which some estimates put at £100m a year, and other costs are included.

Sir Alan Reid, keeper of the privy purse, defended the family's spending as good value. The Queen carried out 400 engagements last year.

— The Guardian, London