THE royals cost Scottish taxpayers nearly £35 million a year, according to a campaign group that wants to see the monarchy abolished.

Officially the Sovereign Grant paid to the royals by the UK Treasury was £42.8m in 2016/17 which Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse, said this represented “excellent value for money”.

However campaign group Republic has carried out research which suggests the cost to the UK could be as much as £345m a year, around eight times higher than official figures – and Republic's Chief Executive Graham Smith estimates that Scotland’s share of that cost is £34.5m.

Republic’s Royal Expenses report insists the Sovereign Grant is just one part of the total cost of the monarchy and identified “hidden costs” – a combination of direct expenditure, lost income and lost opportunities to raise revenue – that the report says are “omitted from official reports”.

Smith said: “The work we’ve done on the finances and cost of the royals is UK-wide. There’s two aspects to it. There’s the official cost, which is the Sovereign Grant. An element of that can be calculated as coming from Scotland. For us, the total cost is £354m.

“Obviously you’ve got Balmoral and Holyroodhouse [In Scotland]. All that costs money. It’s hard to say how much comes from Scotland but you could say 10 per cent of £345m comes from Scotland, so £34.5m.

“It’s all met by central government, basically. Other than when it’s met by local authorities. Given that the royals regularly go to Scotland, and that Scottish people pay into the Treasury, it’s not an unreasonable estimation to say it’s roughly in proportion to the population.”

The royals offered no comment on Republic’s report when it was released in June.