The Queen asked ministers for money to heat Buckingham Palace from a fund reserved for low-income families, it has been revealed.
Royal aides pleaded for the cash as they claimed gas and electricity bills had risen by more than 50 per cent in a year - totalling more than £1million.
They complained that the £15million government grant to cover the Queen's palaces was inadequate and her energy bills had become 'untenable'.
The money would have come from £60million of energy-saving grants reserved for cash-strapped families, housing associations and hospitals.
Changing the guard: The Queen asked ministers for money to heat Buckingham Palace from a fund reserved for low-income families
But ministers rejected the 2004 application made by the Royal Household, fearing a public relations disaster.
The Independent newspaper reports that the Queen's deputy treasurer also wrote to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for a grant to replace four heating and power units at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
The revelations came after it was revealed that the Queen has been forced to sign agreements that effectively give the Government a veto over her spending.
A previously unpublished memo revealed that under Labour, ministers were given the right to over-ride Her Majesty's office on decisions about royal palaces in the event of a dispute.
And it emerged that the same arrangement is in place to cover most of the £38.2million of government money given to the sovereign each year.
The decision raises the prospect of the Queen being made to surrender control of her finances to ministers if they fail to agree on how the money should be spent.
The Government is able to influence what the Queen spends because it sets the amount of funding she receives and requires auditing of the accounts.
'Financial memorandums' containing 70 clauses were drawn up in 2006, formalising the threat of much tighter controls and paving the way for closer scrutiny in future.
Professor Gary Slapper, director of the Centre for Law at the Open University, said: 'It is, in effect, a formal farewell to one of the vestiges of monarchical power. The legal power and influence of the British monarchy has been slipping away for centuries and this memorandum makes clear and concrete that the ultimate power over the monarch and money is held by a minister from an elected government.'
The Queen and Prince Philip meet Pope Benedict XVI last week
The Queen receives £38.2million a year from the Government. This includes the Civil List - a £7.9million annual grant from the Treasury to cover the Queen's personal spending and staff salaries - and four grants - in- aid totalling £19.7million from other departments for areas including travel and building repairs.
Last year she also got £3.9million in miscellaneous costs met by the Government and Crown Estate. The biggest grant is £15.4million for property maintenance from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which also pays her £400,000 communications bill.
The previously unseen clause in its memorandum - revealed under the Freedom of Information Act - says: 'In the event of any irreconcilable differences over the interpretation of this financial memorandum or the memorandum of understanding, the Secretary of State shall be entitled to cease payment of grant-in-aid and take over directly the execution of her responsibility for the provision of property services for the occupied Royal palaces, funding for Royal communications, and provision of property and guard services for Marlborough House.'
A senior royal aide admitted: 'If there is, for example, an issue where a wall collapsed because we didn't have enough money and it became a danger to members of the public, then the department could tell us we had to fix the wall.'
The Freedom of Information requests were initially refused, but the Queen's spokesman denied a cover-up, saying: 'We are a fully transparent and accountable organisation. The nature of finances is under review following the change of government.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314446/The-Queen-pleads-poverty-help-Buckingham-Palace-heating-bill.html#ixzz2SocexBhe
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