Thatcher's funeral costs £1.2m, a fraction of the £10m Labour MPs complained about

Margaret Thatcher's spectacular ceremonial funeral cost the taxpayer just £1.2million, just a fraction of the sum claimed by left-wing opponents, the Daily Mail reported.

The final bill for the ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral has been revealed by ministers in a rebuff to critics who suggested the costs would top £10million.

Officials said that detailed work on the price of security, policing, staff over-time and hiring the Cathedral meant the total was much lower than early estimates suggested.

In April the Cabinet Office published an early estimate of the funeral costs, which came to £3.6million.

It included around £2million for policing by 4,000 officers who would have been on duty anyway.

The newly published figure covers ‘marginal costs’ spent specifically on the funeral for Britain's first female Prime Minister, as opposed to spending on salaries and buildings which would have been incurred any way.

On the morning of the funeral, Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott complained about the bill.

“There is just no precedent, it’s a breach of protocol and it’s going to cost £10million,” she claimed, in what now appears to be a vast overestimate.

Tory MP Conor Burns, a close friend of Baroness Thatcher, said: “Lady T would have been delighted that, even in death, she has proved the Left wrong.”

The confirmed costs for organising the funeral were £261,976, including staff overtime, down from £500,000 estimated in April.

It included £31,978 by the Cabinet Office, £7,000 by the City of London Corporation, £78,244 by the Foreign Office, £8,311 by the Greater London Authority and £20,445 by the London Ambulance Service.

Lady Thatcher had requested a strong military element to her funeral, in recognition of her victory in the Falklands War.

The Ministry of Defence spent £39,057 while the Houses of Parliament spent £1,700, Transport for London £1,000 and £6,333 by Westminster City Council.

The breakdown of figures show St Paul’s Cathedral cost £67,908.

The direct policing and security costs for the funeral came to £943,833, down from an estimate of £1.1million in April

The bulk of the bill came from £845,600 from the Met, while the British Transport Police spent £25,233 and City of London Police £73,000.

Cabinet Office minister Lord Wallace said: ‘No public money was spent on the reception at the Guildhall, which was paid for by the City of London Corporation and not out of public funds.

“Further costs were met by Baroness Thatcher’s estate,” he added in a statement to Parliament.


More than 2,300 mourners joined Lady Thatcher's daughter Carol and son Mark at the ceremony.


The Queen and Prince Philip broke with tradition to attend the funeral of a former Prime Minister for the first time since Winston Churchill.

Baroness Thatcher was honoured with a sombre but spectacular funeral ceremony that paid tribute to the ‘courage and perseverance’ of Britain's greatest peacetime prime minister.