Last week was a momentous one for King Charles and Prince William – now other royals need to look in the mirror and follow their example. First King Charles became the first monarch to reveal his tax bill, showing he paid a hefty £12.9million in tax for 2024-2025 and ranked among the top 100 UK taxpayers – while the Prince of Wales paid £7.76m in tax.
Then it was revealed that Charles would not move back into Buckingham Palace after its 10 years of renovations, so the 775-room building can be used more by the British public and tourists. Finally Prince William showed his class by waiving his right to an annual £1.5million payment from the Ministry of Justice in rent from Dartmoor Prison – so that money can be used by the community living near the closed jail instead.
Some royals may be quaking in their boots over the gestures from the King and the King-to-be – especially members of the controversial York branch. Firstly Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, must be wondering what he has given back to the nation, other than expense receipts, since his service in the Armed Forces ended.
Sarah Ferguson must also be feeling embarrassed by all this giving, when her life has been heavily built upon decades of taking. But their children, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, may also have to consider their ‘property position’ now.
Earlier this month the release of a National Audit Office (NAO) report – the first into royal residences for 20 years – revealed that Charles personally pays a heavily subsidised rent for the princesses to have palace apartments, despite neither being working royals. Eugenie has access to a three-bed property in Kensington Palace and Beatrice has a flat in St James’s Palace; both palaces are maintained by public funding through the Sovereign Grant.
Norman Baker, the former Home Office minister, said it was “outrageous to subsidise luxury accommodation” in this way and that the public were “being taken for a ride”. Neither palace pad is the siblings’ primary home – they simply don’t really need them, they shouldn’t have them at such a reduced cost, and frankly the King shouldn’t be paying anyway!
Beatrice, married to property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, lives in a £3 million Cotswolds home with daughters Sienna, four, and Athena, one. Eugenie, married to marketing executive Jack Brooksbank, lives in Portugal with their two children, August, five, and Ernest, three.
Both sisters have successful careers and neither are short of a few bob. They were dragged into the Epstein Files scandal when it was revealed the sisters, aged 21 and 19, flew with their mum to the US to celebrate with vile Jeffery Epstein in July 2009, after his prison sentence for procuring a 14-year-old girl for prostitution. They are not working royals and it is time they finally gave something back to Britain… their palace keys.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk ’
