<\/p>\n
A former minister described Prince Edward\u2019s rental scheme as \u201coutrageous\u201d, telling The Sun that Crown Estate revenues should flow directly into public coffers.<\/p>\n
Norman Baker, a former Liberal Democrat home affairs minister, said: \u201cAny money raised from those stables should only be going to one place: the Crown Estate. Crown Estate profits go directly to the Treasury, so it is the taxpayer who is losing out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the deal that pays the royal couple annually, he added that it was a \u201cvery stable income\u201d on top of the couple \u201cpaying virtually nothing for Bagshot Park\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an outrage that they pay a peppercorn rent as it is, and now Prince Edward and Sophie Wessex are free to rake in \u00a3130,000 for a stable block as part of the deal,\u201d he added, saying that the public accounts committee should delve further into the issue.<\/p>\n
He urged MPs to \u201chonour [their] part of the investigation and take into account leases and see which are unnecessary and unjustified when ordinary people are struggling to pay bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is understood that Prince Edward\u2019s peppercorn rent<\/a> is consistent with standard market practice for long-leasehold residential properties where \u201csignificant\u201d capital investment is made or a premium is paid in lieu of market rent.<\/p>\n The committee\u2019s announcement of a financial inquiry into how Crown Estate properties are managed came in the wake of a public outcry after it emerged that, for more than 20 years, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had paid only a peppercorn rent<\/a> on Royal Lodge.<\/p>\n The revelation had followed \u201cserious and disturbing\u201d allegations made about Prince Edward\u2019s older brother and his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n