29 July 2005
Prince Charles and the Queen should submit their annual accounts to the National Audit Office for proper scrutiny, senior backbench MPs have said this week.
The Public Accounts Committee called on the senior royals to throw open the finances of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which provide their households with an income, to auditor general Sir John Bourn.
As the accounts must be presented to Parliament, the committee said, the best way of ensuring adequate parliamentary scrutiny was to end the 'anomaly' by which the NAO does not have access to them.
Edward Leigh, the Conservative chair of the committee, said: 'I cannot understand why these accounts are not subject to the same disclosure requirements as other accounts presented to Parliament.'
The committee, publishing its report into the accounts of the two duchies on July 28, said it had identified 'obscurities and potential conflicts of interest in the management and governance' of the duchies' accounts.
These included Prince Charles's direct involvement in the management of the Duchy of Cornwall. The MPs said this set up a possible tension between his interests and the interests of future beneficiaries. Consequently, they said, his direct management role should end.
The PAC also called for the role and functions of the Treasury, which exercises oversight of the duchies' management arrangements, to be spelled out more clearly.
Its members called, too, for the Treasury to review the arrangements regarding the duchies to see if they still meet the needs of the two royal households.
'As these arrangements have been in place for over 600 years, such a review would hardly be over hasty,' Leigh observed.
PFjul2005
