Public funding for the Monarchy should be slashed because “ordinary people are being shafted by a rich elite”, the SNP has said.
Delegates at the party conference in Glasgow overwhelmingly backed a motion for the Sovereign Grant Act to be repealed and for the money to be spent on the “wider public good” instead.
Julie Hepburn, the SNP’s political education convener, said the Sovereign Grant is “basically the equivalent of the Royal Family winning the Lottery every single year”.
She said: “No need for the Queen to play Euromillions. With the Sovereign Grant, Her Majesty is purring all the way to the bank.”
The legislation, introduced in 2011, saw the Royal Family receiving a proportion of profits from the sizeable Crown Estate. The Royal Family has seen its income significantly boosted as a result, receiving £76million this year compared to £31million in 2012/13.
The motion echoes calls by the Labour MP Emma Dent Coad who spoke out about public funding for the Monarchy to be severed at the party’s conference in Brighton last month.
Hepburn added: “This is our money; money that could otherwise be spent on the public good. Under the Sovereign Grant system there is no accountability for the size of the payments that go to the Royal household or any limitations to ensure proportionality.
“If profits double, the payments double. At a time when the UK Government is insisting we all tighten our belts, particularly the most vulnerable, because there is no money there can be no moral justification for giving just one family over £70million. That could pay for a lot of mobility cars.”
She also hit out at widespread “faux anger” on the “who’s up, who’s down” in politics, which she branded “operation mass distraction” from the British establishment.
She said: “We need to keep taking a step back, look up and look out and see how ordinary people are being shafted by a rich elite and how the odds are always stacked in favour of the most privileged in our society.
“The Sovereign Grant is the epitome of that privilege and a symbol of everything that is rotten at the core of the UK’s political system.”
Glasgow Central MP Alison Thewliss, who has been campaigning against changes to tax credits, also spoke in favour of the motion.
She said: “If you are a Royal couple and you have a third child then Theresa May will congratulate you. If you are a person on tax credits and you have a third child, the Tories will condemn you.
“We need to think about the unjustness and the unfairness of this.”