Costs to rise for Pope's UK visit

The Pope's visit to the UK is set to cost the Government up to £4m more than the original budget (AP)
12 April 2012

The cost to the Government of the Pope's visit to Britain is set to rise by up to £4 million, it has been disclosed.

Lord Patten of Barnes, the Prime Minister's special representative for the Papal visit, said the previous £15 million estimated non-police costs of the visit had under-estimated the "complexity and sophistication" of a visit combining both state and pastoral elements.

He said the Government contribution - previously estimated at £8 million - was now reckoned to rise to between £10 million and £12 million.

"We now reckon that on the Government side that we will have to make a larger commitment even though we have driven down the costs of some elements of the visit," he told a news conference.

"We reckon now that the costs, apart from policing, will be somewhere between £10 and £12 million rather the £8 million or so that we were previously calculating."

He added that he believed the Church would also have to raise more money for the visit.

He was speaking as more details of the visit were revealed at the Foreign Office.

The four-day event, between September 16 and September 19, and starting in Scotland, will be the first State Visit by a Pope to Britain.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT