Prince Philip’s funeral guest list announced by Royal Family

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The Duke of Edinburgh, who died on Friday aged 99, will be laid to rest in Windsor on Saturday. It will be a vastly scaled-down funeral due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the Duke also made a personal decision not to lie in state. The cost of the Queen Mother lying in state in Westminster Abbey in 2002 came to £825,000 according to a House of Commons research briefing paper, which is £1.4million in today’s money.

Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Express.co.uk: “It is obviously costing less, he didn’t want to lie in state, but the breakdown of the costs of the Queen Mother’s funeral was complex.”

The Queen Mother’s funeral was financed by both the taxpayer and the Queen.

Overall, Philip’s funeral is expected to cost much less than the Queen Mother’s funeral, which came to over £5.4million, which is nearly £9million in today’s money.

The funeral for the wife of King George VI came with a fly-past and policing costs amounting to a huge £4.3million.

Of this £4,3million, £2.2million would have been incurred anyway if staff were assigned to other duties, but £2.1million were additional costs directly attributed to the funeral arrangements, according to the Daily Mirror.

The Home Office reportedly spent £1,817 on mourning stationery and the Ministry of Defence Budget for the event was £301,000.

Other additional costs were likely, but the Queen took these on.

However, the Queen has signed off plans for her husband’s private funeral of just 30 mourners to be held at Windsor Castle with a very short procession from the State Entrance to St George’s Chapel.

The demands on the police will be reduced, without any procession through the streets of London and Windsor, and Philip not lying in state also reduces security costs.

A number of military personnel will gather in the grounds of Windsor Castle to take part in the proceedings before the ceremonial royal funeral, but far fewer than planned in ordinary times.

Some 11,887 police staff and 1,206 civil staff were in operation from the day the Queen Mother died to her funeral, a Metropolitan Police report on the cost of policing public order events during 2002 revealed.

The funeral for Princess Diana in 1997 was estimated to be between £3million and £5million.

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Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher’s ceremonial funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2013 cost the taxpayer around £3.2million, according to reports.

This figure includes £2million of “opportunity costs” for policing by officers who would have been on other duties on the day.

A further £943,000 went on providing additional security and policing.

Ceremonial costs, including the service at St Paul’s and the printing and circulation of invitations, came to around £261,976, including £20,445 for the London Ambulance Service at £39,057 for the Ministry of Defence.

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However, her family made a contribution to the overall cost, including covering the costs of the undertakers and the flowers.

Pod Save the Queen is hosted by Ann Gripper and features Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers.

Mr Myers said in a Prince Philip special episode this week that it will be a “very, very different occasion” due to the coronavirus crisis.

While there had been plans in place for decades, Mr Myers felt Philip will be “having the last laugh” as he “wasn’t one for fuss” or “pomp and ceremony”.

Indeed, it was his own choice to forgo a state funeral and have a royal ceremonial funeral instead, although he likely anticipated more than 30 attendees.

The royal editor said: “It will be very very different but no less in keeping with his wishes and still a tremendous occasion to see him off of a life well served.”

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