KING CHARLES III’s coronation cost taxpayers a “shameful” £72 million in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, government figures have revealed.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) racked up £50.3m in costs for co-ordinating the event in May 2023. The cost for policing the ceremony was £21.7m and was paid for by the Home Office.

Campaign group Republic, which campaigns to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state and more democratic political system, said today that the coronation was an “obscene” waste of taxpayers’ money.

Republic chief executive Graham Smith said the money spent could have paid for free school meals instead of a “pointless, archaic parade.”

“At a time when so many people are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, it is shameful that Charles insisted on this pointless extravaganza,” he said.

“It was an extravagance we simply didn’t have to have. It was completely unnecessary and a waste of money in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis in a country that is facing huge amounts of child poverty.

“When kids are unable to afford lunches at school, to spend over £70m on this parade is obscene.”

Mr Smith suggested the total spend was likely higher as the Ministry of Defence, Transport for London, fire brigades and local councils also incurred costs related to the coronation.

“I would be very surprised if £72m was the whole cost,” he added.

“But even that kind of money — £72m — is incredible.

“It’s a huge amount to spend on one person’s parade when there was no obligation whatsoever in the constitution or in law to have a coronation, and when we were facing cuts to essential services.

“It was a parade that Charles insisted on at huge expense to the taxpayer, and this is on top of the huge inheritance tax bill he didn’t [have to] pay, on top of the £500m-a-year cost of the monarchy.”

There was much speculation about the cost to the public purse in the run-up to the event, which saw 20 million people in Britain watch Charles crowned at Westminster Abbey on TV.

A YouGov poll conducted a month before the Coronation revealed that 52 per cent of Londoners did not believe taxpayers should pay for it.

DCMS refused to reveal the cost until it was published in its annual accounts on Thursday.