With an inquiry into the Crown Estate’s residences being sparked after the disgraced prince lived essentially rent-free for two decades, the Mirror’s Royal Editor Russell Myers questions how the Royal Family at large will be impacted by such an invasive financial probe
The Royal Family’s finances have long been opaque and some arguably completely shrouded in mystery. The King’s disgraced brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, has for the past two decades lived a charmed existence in a 30-room mansion, recently revealed as paying a ‘peppercorn’ rent after an initial outlay of £7.5million to live at the grand Royal Lodge in Windsor with a 75-year lease.
His other brother Prince Edward was only the week revealed to have also had a similar deal in place with the Crown Estate, the body that manages royal residences whose own position is equally hard to define as it sits between the public and private sectors.
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The Duke of Edinburgh, who was awarded the title after his father Prince Philip’s death in April 2021, moved into the 120-room Bagshot Park with his wife, the Duchess of Edinburgh, in March 1998. He initially leased the home for five decades for £5,000 a year, though that rose to an annual sum of £90,000 after he paid £1.36million to renovate the estate, with the Crown Estate handing over another £3million for refurbishments.
All of this has been unwelcome attention on a family whose wealth runs into the billions.
Following Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s spectacular fall from grace in the wake of his relationship with the late convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein being exposed, MPs broke rank in the House of Commons to demand answers as to how the former prince – who last month had his titles stripped from him by the King – afforded his luxury lifestyle.
Now, in light of the “serious and disturbing” allegations against him, for which he is still requested to speak to US Congress investigating Epstein’s catalogue of horrific crimes, the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has launched an inquiry into the Royal Family’s Crown Estate properties.
As part of its initial findings the committee has revealed the Prince and Princess of Wales who recently moved home for the second time in three years, the eight bedroom Forest Lodge also on the Windsor estate, have also negotiated a lease for their new “forever home”.
Quite what the “market rate” is for the 20 year lease will no doubt become clear in due course, but finally a parliamentary committee has found the teeth to probe whether taxpayers are getting value for money.
Each year, I along with other royal correspondents, have the unenviable task of sifting through dozens of pages of accounts as part of the Sovereign Grant. As furore over the government’s use of taxpayer funds to boost the welfare state has grown, so has attention over how the monarchy is funded.
The Royal Family receives tens of millions of pounds each year from the Sovereign Grant and uses it to cover the cost of official duties, but this is not the King’s only source of income.
A percentage of the profits made by the Crown Estate, a vast portfolio of land which is separate to the monarch’s personal property (which again has been debated over centuries over just how such land and property has been acquired), makes up the Sovereign Grant.
To the untrained observer it is hard to distinguish just how the King’s three main sources of income – the Sovereign Grant, the estates of the Duchy of Lancaster and Duchy of Cornwall, as well as personal property and investments – are made up.
The announcement by the PAC could well be the start of a greater level of transparency over millions, if not billions, of just how these funds are being used and distributed.
