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Scandals in the royal family are nothing new. Recently, the whole world watched the complicated relationship between the brothers – Crown Prince William and the prodigal royal son Prince Harry of Sussex, who left the royal home and flew to America after his American wife. Relations between the brothers never got better, but now we find ourselves witnessing a new drama in the royal family. This is, of course, not the “apartment issue” that has spoiled Muscovites, but something similar, only on a completely different scale and on a different soil.
A palace issue
Earlier this year, it was revealed that Prince Andrew refused an offer from his brother, King Charles III, to move from the 30-room Royal Lodge palace, where he has lived for the past 20 years, to the nearby more modest Frogmore Cottage, the former home of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan. Prince Andrew, Duke of York flatly refused to move, after which the royal decided to no longer pay for the duke’s security detail. This means that Andrew will either have to fund his own security or move out anyway, because he simply won’t be able to pay for his own security or other household expenses after the King has already taken away his £1 million a year allowance. And those who have seen Royal Lodge tell us that the palace is in a deplorable state and in urgent need of repair.
Prince Andrew loses everything
Once considered Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite son – the hero of the Falklands War – the Duke of York, Prince Andrew has fallen into disfavor over his association with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and allegations by a 17-year-old American girl, Virginia Giuffre, of sexual assault. Prince Andrew had to relinquish his royal duties and was stripped of his status as His Royal Highness, as well as all military titles and honors. However, he then managed to keep his £1 million annual allowance and remain in the 30-room Royal Lodge palace, but it was the Queen, in consultation with Crown Prince Charles and his son William, who still decided to strip Andrew of all honors.
Rumor has it that Crown Prince William now has his eye on Royal Lodge Palace, judging by The Times’ high-profile investigation, it’s not that the king and prince are in dire need of living space. Quite the opposite!
Kings can do anything
Journalists managed to identify all the land and real estate owned through the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall King Charles III and Prince William of Wales. Such land holdings turned out to be about 5.5 thousand, but the matter is not even in the number, but in the fact that the possessions are not taxed. That is, they are taxed, but not all of them.
For centuries, these estates remained a closely guarded secret of the royal family and its narrow circle of advisors. Even Parliament has been denied access to the list of royal land holdings. However, journalists who investigated for several months and studied land registers and other documents, managed to identify not only all the land holdings of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, but also the fact that their owners – the king and the crown prince – lease these lands and properties to various, including state organizations, such as the Ministry of Defense, the NHS and even a prison, and do not pay some taxes on the considerable rental income.
The scandal of the investigation is precisely not the monarchs’ ownership of land and property, but the fact that, while receiving, for example, £11 million in rent for an NHS-owned ambulance depot, the duchies pay no corporation tax or capital gains tax.
The King and Crown Prince are profiting from social services and key ministries
The Ministry of Justice pays Prince William’s Duchy £1.5m a year for the use of Dartmoor Prison. The Ministry of Defense pays for exercises at Dartmoor, the Navy pays for parking and refueling its fleet. Journalists have discovered that even charities have paid millions to rent a 1960s office block in central London.
The “Duchy Dossier,” as journalists have dubbed it, reveals that the king and prince, through their duchies, charge fees for the right to cross rivers, unload cargo on shore, lay cables under beaches, run schools and charities, and even dig graves. They generate income from toll bridges, ferries, sewers, churches, village churches, pubs, distilleries, gasworks, boat docks, open and underground mines, parking lots, rental houses and wind turbines.
Background
The Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall cover 180,000 acres of England and Wales. They consist largely of lands and seashores seized by kings in the centuries immediately following the Norman Conquest. In the eighteenth century, the royals transferred control of the crown’s inheritance to the Exchequer, but the monarch and his heir were allowed to retain their duchies, partly because they did not generate much income.
In recent decades, however, their revenues have risen dramatically and today, according to annual reports, the duchies are sprawling modern businesses holding assets worth a combined £1.8 billion.
Journalists have estimated that the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall made as much as £50 million last year alone.
The fact that royal estates are not subject to some important taxes, and especially the news that the king is charging the beggarly NHS health service, state schools and the Ministry of Defense to rent a garage for ambulances is very bad PR for a modern monarchy.
Calls for the return of the duchies of the states
After the publication of the sensational investigation, there were calls for the king and the crown prince to give up the duchies. Republicans are particularly outraged, of course. “The solution is very simple – abolish the duchies,” said Graham Smith of the Republic movement.
He recalled that three centuries ago Parliament allowed the kings to retain control of these estates when the monarchy transferred all other land holdings to the Treasury. “It is time for Parliament to renege on that agreement,” he said.
The subject of royal taxes is not new. 32 years ago, an article by financial journalist Jonathan Mantle about the duchies being tax-free caused not only an uproar but also led to the Queen proposing a voluntary tax on her income. This was announced in the House of Commons by then Prime Minister John Major, but the monarchy was exempted from paying corporation tax and income tax. In 2013, the issue of duchy taxes was raised again, but the parliamentary committee that raised the issue then never achieved anything.
It seems to me that this time a journalistic investigation may yield results. It is unlikely that the king and the crown prince will want to look like soulless businessmen profiting from their subjects.
