The point everyone is missing, is that the revenue from the Crown Estates, which George III gave up and which goes into the Exchequer, has far far exceeded the Civil List payment for decades.

The Queen is already thought to have accepted that the royals' £10 million Civil List payment must be reduced.

And he suggested she had responded with an offer that her family would not draw the full Civil List payments.

Her Civil List payments, which have been fixed until the end of the century, would not be affected.

In the fiscal year 2007/2008 the Crown Estate paid the Treasury £211.00 million in return for £7.9 million in Civil List payments to the Queen.

She would still get 7.9 million Civil List payments tax free.

The Queen's Civil List payment remains frozen at £7.9 million.

The message is being relayed by Prince Philip and the Queen's private secretary Sir Robert Fellowes in the wake of her decision to pay taxes and meet Civil List payments for other royals.

From 2013, the Royal family's Civil List payments will be replaced, and instead they will receive 15 per cent of the Crown Estate's profits, although the Queen, the Duke, the Prince of Wales and other members of the family do not have any say over how the estate makes its money.

Services funded in this way are known as Consolidated Fund Services and include judges' salaries, payments to the European Union, the Civil List payments, the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and the expenses paid to returning officers at elections.