Belgium plans to slash the annual stipend of the dowager Queen Fabiola after politicians learned she had set up a private foundation to provide for nieces and nephews and for her favourite Catholic charities after her death.

The National Secular Society says that the Queen's or any future Monarch's role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England is unsustainable – despite the results of a new poll showing that 79% of British adults think that the Queen still has an important "faith role".