TV review by Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour member
This week, the Channel 4 Dispatches programme, for the first time broadcast details of the private income and details of King Charles’ wealth. Both Charles and his heir, Prince William, have accrued – by inheritance – a huge fortune from ownership of lands and properties that date back to straighforward plunder some 700 years ago.
In The King, the Prince and their secret millions, Charles is describedasthe owner of the Duchy of Lancaster, including large chunks of land in northern England. Prince William owns the Duchy of Cornwall, which also has extensive land and residential ownership in the South West of England.
The programme opens with the secrecy surrounding the Royals’ private estates. Even Parliament are denied access to the number of properties owned by the King and his heir. When he was crowned, Charles was keen to have his ‘subjects’ swear and oath of allegiance, but he is not prepared to let his subjects know the full extent of his enormous wealth.
Dispatches were given documents that reveal the profits from the two duchies. The programme arrator, Harriet Earle, explained that the documents show that the royals own, among other things, the land on which Dartmoor Prison stands. This prison currently has no inmates there because of a radon scare, but the Duchy is still receiving rent from a vacant property.
This more or less sets the tone for other revelations, as it becomes clear that the King and his heir are milking the public sector and services hand over fist. The Duchy of Cornwall, for example, receive monies from a local state school and from the Ministry of Defence for using parts of Dartmoor as a training ground.
What are the royals trying to hide from their ‘subjects’
It is a general theme that the royal family benefit from publicly owned services, even including properties used by the NHS. Dispatches had used the Freedom of Information Act to find out the cost of the MOD using Dartmoor, and even then, the information was heavily redacted so much of it remains concealed. What is Prince William trying to hide from his future subjects, and more to the point, why?
Earle interviewed, Baronness Margaret Hodge, a former chair of the House of Commons Accounts Committee. She is a Labour right winger, but even she believes that there should be more transparency when it comes to publicly owned services that are funded by general taxation. Earle , correctly noted out that there is no cost of living crisis for the royals. In 2025, they are going to receive a sovereign grant of £125 million, an increase of 50% on this year’s grant.
It was also reported that the two duchies stand to rake in a further £50mn in profit and, to add insult to injury, it was reported that unlike other companies and individuals, they are not required to pay Corporation or Capital Gains Tax. The rationale for this appears to be that they are private estates and not companies, although the duchies admit – and frequently comment in statements – that they operate as ‘commercial’ entities.
When Earle headed north to the Duchy of Lancaster – Charles’ gift from medieval times – she discovered a similar pattern. The programme interviewed Steve Rotherham, the Mayor of Liverpool, who supports the idea of building a tidal power station to supply clean energy to the area. Steve Rotherham discovered that they would have to pay rent for the use of the Mersey estuary because the Duchy of Lancaster own the shoreline!
Who knew? – the seabed around Britain ‘belongs’ to the Crown
In the same way, huge profits are being made every day from wind farms located offshore around the British Isles, on the ludicrous grounds that the seabed around the coast is ‘owned’ by the Crown. The royals, and Charles especially, are fond of claiming to support the environment, but they are milking one of the most important renewable energy production facilities for all they’re worth.
Not only that, but the Duchies have profited from activities that have damaged the environment. The Duchy of Cornwall owns around 600 residential properties, many of which are poorly insulated, are damp and hard to warm. As mandy as 14% of these homes are on the lowest energy rates and it surprised one expert to told that they were owned by the royal family.
The royals are always keen on being patrons of well known charities, to show how ‘concerned’ they are about worthy causes. It gives the royals good publicity to be seen to be acting in the interests of the common people. But Dispatches reports that The Duchy of Cornwll is not so ‘charitable’ to the Marie Curie Foundation or Cancer Research or Comic Relief, all of whom are charged rent by it.
The monarchy is a reserve political weapon for capitalism
One of Charles’ pet projects was the building of Poundbury, a town in Dorset, near Dorchester. It was built in a neoclassical style reflecting Charles’ often-cited opinions on building appearance. But Poundbury isn’t a ‘model’ town or some kind of Utopia. Here, Earle interviewed a Fire Brigade Union rep, who told us that the Fire and Rescue Service were having to pay rent, even while cuts in the service were made in Poundbury. In fact, many big high street names are also paying to the Duchy for their leases.
Many of the programmes contributors thought that the finances of the Duchies should be transparent and that they should pay Corporation Tax. They should also pay Capital Gains Tax because they sell land and properties for profit. Although I think these measures should be supported, they are not going to change society.
It was pointed out at one point in the programme that that the Armed Forces, Police and Civil Service structures all pay their allegiance to the Crown, not to Parliament. That gives a clue about its real function. The royal family is not a ‘neutral’ relic of medieval times, kept going for tourists. It is an important potential instrument to frustrate any radical government that would attempt to transform society along socialist lines. The monarchy still retains real constitutional powers that will be used attempt to stop or remove any governments that doesn’t support the current system .
The labour movement must include the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords as part of its programme to change society along socialist lines.
The Channel 4 Dispatches programme, The King, the Prince and their secret millions, can be seen here.
An earlier series on Channel 4 abour royal wealth, broadcast in 2022, can be see here.
[Top picture from Wikimedia Commons, here and Poundbury picture from here]
