£50million bill to repair the Queen's crumbling palaces as more than a THIRD of royal estate deemed below 'target condition

The Queen is living in 'crumbling surroundings' and faces a Ј50million repair bill to bring her palaces up to scratch, it emerged yesterday.
More than a third of the royal estate has been designated as below 'target condition'.
National treasures such as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle have walls riddled with asbestos, badly need rewiring and have leaking roofs.
Staff have to catch the rain in buckets to protect priceless works of art and antiques, particularly in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace.
Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Alan Reid revealed that it will cost tens of millions to return royal residences to their former splendour.
Details of the Queen's 'penury' emerged as her courtiers were accused by MPs of dragging their feet over a huge backlog of repairs.

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Sir Alan, the Royal Family's senior treasurer, was questioned by members of the Commons Public Accounts Committee after a National Audit Office report revealed the Queen will enjoy a 22 per cent increase in income over two years. 
She is expected to be given Ј37.9million in 2014/15 to run her Household and conduct official engagements, up from Ј31million in 2012/13.
But most of the state rooms used for entertaining foreign heads of state have not been decorated since the Queen came to the throne 60 years ago, while Princess Anne was almost hit by falling masonry as she got out of her car at Buckingham Palace just a few years ago.






He admitted that some 39 per cent of the royal estate was below 'target condition'. The committee chairman, Labour's Margaret Hodge, was dismayed when Sir Alan initially said he could not give the precise cost of repairs, a figure he later estimated to be around Ј50million.
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After the hearing, Mrs Hodge said: 'They've got to get a bit real. The rest of the world is coping, why can't they? I was pretty shocked that they hadn't got a clear view of what work needed to be done, what was the cost and where the priorities lay.
'You don't run national heritage assets that way, from hand to mouth. They can serve Her Majesty better.'
Sir Alan told the committee they were hoping to make 'major inroads' over the next decade. As well as questioning the big increase in energy bills, MPs asked why the Royal Family's gas use had soared by 14 per cent. 
Sir Alan said that while the Household did not 'fix' its bill, it set up multi-year deals to obtain power from the wholesale markets.
Last week's NAO report highlighted previous 'significant reductions' in the monarchy's funding. In order to cope the Queen's money men have reduced net expenditure by 55 per cent in real terms.
The Queen has repeatedly eaten into her savings - known as 'drawing down on reserves' - over the years and is, apparently, down to her last Ј1million in the bank.



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