The Queen looks set to ask the Government for a significant increase in her Civil List as annual accounts revealed that her reserve funds will run out by her Diamond Jubilee.

During the last financial year, the total cost of keeping the monarchy increased by £1.5 million to £41.5 million.

The Queen and the Royal Family now cost the taxpayer 69p for every man, woman and child in the country - a 3p increase compared to 2007/08.

Although the Civil List, which pays for the running of the Royal Household, has not increased in two decades, any request for a boost in funds comes during the worst economic crisis to hit the UK since the Second World War.

The current deal - £7.9 million a year - finishes at the end of next year.

The royal accounts showed that the Queen dipped into a reserve fund last year to boost this by £6 million to £13.9 million.

This is the highest amount ever drawn from the reserve, which comes from surplus Civil List money accumulated in the 1990s.

Buckingham Palace accountants are understood to be hoping to keep the total current level of spending the same in real terms when the Civil List is renegotiated, prompting speculation that the Queen will ask for a substantial increase in order to do so.

The boost from the reserve last year accounted for 43% of the total Civil List money.

If the Queen continues drawing on her reserve at the current rate, she will run out of funds by the start of 2012 - 60 years since she acceded to the throne. The pot of money has gone down from £35 million to £21 million in the last decade.

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