Jubilee weekend: How much will it cost the UK taxpayer?

Thanks Rishi

Millions of Brits will be gearing up to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this weekend - but these events do come with a rather hefty price tag. The Trooping the Colour ceremony kicked things off in the capital on Thursday morning, when the Queen was spotted waving from her balcony in the first of many appearances across the four-day weekend. Meanwhile on the ground, police already had to get involved when protesters interrupted the start of the parade. https://twitter.com/JOE_co_uk/status/1532294760647491584 Of course, this is just the beginning of what is set to be a busy (and expensive) few days. A whopping 70,000 lunches, 1,458 public events, 2,000 street parties are planned between Thursday and Sunday, with a massive concert inside Buckingham Palace and a huge pageant taking place too. While many will be keen to get involved, a lot of us will likely be wondering the same thing...who is actually paying for all of this, and what kind of costs are involved? [caption id="attachment_339824" align="alignnone" width="2048"] Rishi Sunak set aside £28 million of the budget for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee (Photo: Getty)[/caption] You'll be interested to know that a huge chunk is in fact coming from tax payers money. Chancellor Rishi Sunak set aside £28 million of the 2021 budget to pay for the occasion, though it will not be clear exactly how much was spent until after the event. The Jubilee Pageant on Sunday (basically a huge parade in London) will cost £15 million alone, though the government has said this will be at no cost to the taxpayer. Some of the costs will be also be covered by partner organisations. According to the Platinum Jubilee’s website, for example, more than £22million of National Lottery funding is being made available for the bank holiday. This is to fund programmes with Arts Council England, Sport England and the British Film Institute which "will support communities to develop activities that bring people together to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022". The Jubilee website breaks down the following contributions:

• National Lottery Community Fund’s Platinum Jubilee fund is offering grants of up to £50,000 to 70 community projects
• There are £10,000 grants being offered in the National Lottery Awards For All programme for all 2022 events
• Arts Council England is offering grants up to £10,000 - The Arts Council has announced £175,000 towards libraries to help them celebrate
• UK National Archive is offering £30,000 to help the archive sector honour the Queen
• National Lottery Heritage £7million fund to help natural green spaces flourish

There's no getting around the fact this weekend is going to be expensive - though the celebrations could bring £1.2 billion into the economy, according to VisitEngland, and an estimated £408 million will be spent over the next four days. Related stories:

• 'Stuff the Jubilee': How anti-monarchists are turning a party into a protest
• Song called 'Prince Andrew Is A Sweaty N***e' rising up British charts ahead of jubilee
• Anti-monarchy billboards appear in Scottish cities and people are loving it