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Rachel Reeves<\/a> is pressured to make “radical” steps ahead of talks on future funding of the Royal Family by taxpayers. The Chancellor is being urged to tear up a deal that will see nearly \u00a3138million of taxpayers’ money handed to the Royal Family<\/a> this year. It comes as Ministers are set to draw up legislation to cut the Sovereign Grant, the annual taxpayer-funded payment<\/a> made by the Government to the Royal Household to support the King’s official duties, including staff costs, travel, and palace maintenance. The grant has soared by nearly \u00a350million in three years to pay for Buckingham Palace repairs, sparking controversy, the Daily Mirror reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Labour’s anti-corruption tsar Baroness Margaret Hodge said that the Prince Andrew<\/a> controversy was a turning point, suggesting that a lack of transparency about the royals’ private income could undermine the monarchy during a challenging period. Meanwhile, former Labour minister George Foulkes, who has long campaigned for clarity on how the Royal Family uses public funds, expressed hope that the upcoming King’s Speech<\/a> taking place on May 13 will introduce broad reforms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lord Foulkes<\/a> told the Mirror: “There’s a growing concern that when a lot of people are finding the cost of living<\/a> difficult, when there are a lot of people homeless<\/a>, when there are a lot of people struggling, you see the royal estates and you see the Queen travelling by a helicopter to a race meeting (at the Plumpton Racecourse), it’s getting increasingly unacceptable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “And so it really needs to be a rather more radical review than it has been in the past.” The Treasury<\/a> has confirmed the amount the royals receive is being looked at as part of a five-year review process..<\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, there are no plans to rip up the Sovereign Grant arrangement brought in by George Osborne<\/a> in 2011 and which Baroness Hodge thinks has “run out of time”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She added: “It’s now the time for it to be reviewed, and I think she (Ms Reeves) is reviewing the terms of it. One would hope that they will come back with something that cuts that, so it reflects what’s happening in the rest of Britain.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “Right through the whole of austerity, when all public services were being cut, they were getting more and more Sovereign Grant.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n