The royal household wants more money, in order to meet its maintenence costs.
The credit crunch appears to have claimed an unlikely new victim: the Queen.
It is thought that the palace has called for the current ten-year freeze on the Civil List - the public fund through which the royals are financed - to be broken. A £25 million reserve is currently retained by the royal household in order to tide it over until 2011, when the fund is scheduled to be renegotiated.
Members of the household are now lobbying ministers for additional funds, however. Part of this extra money, courtiers say, would go on extra maintenance work on the royal homes.
Buckingham Palace, for example, retains much of the same wiring it had installed in 1948 - and might also need a new roof. Structural wear and tear has also been noted, with the Princess Royal having a lucky escape from falling masonry when she was getting into her car outside the palace last year.
However, the recent economic downturn caused by the credit crunch might make this extra funding less likely to be agreed to by the government. Labour MP Austin Mitchell even said yesterday that the Queen should "use her own personal wealth to plug the gap in times like these".
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, a Buckingham palace representative confirmed that the household would be "asking for more help" when the civil list is renegotiated.
A palace source added: "The Queen is very concerned about the deterioration to her palaces and is well aware how serious the situation is."
