Published 12:42 IST, February 10th 2021
UK's Prince Charles 'vetted laws which prevent his tenants from buying his homes': Report
UK royal family has used Queen’s consent to vet three parliamentary acts that have prevented residents on Prince Charles’ estate from buying their own homes.
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The UK royal family has used a "secretive procedure" to vet three parliamentary acts that have prevented the residents on Prince Charles’ estate from buying their own homes for several decades, revealed the Guardian. As per the report, the £1bn Duchy of Cornwall estate of the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, was later given special exemptions in the acts that denied residents the legal right to buy their own homes straightforwardly.
Under the procedure called the ‘Queen’s consent’ that the left-leaning paper has been elaborating in a series of reports citing documents from National Archives, the Queen and Prince of Wales were reportedly allowed to vet the contents of the bills by the government ministers and approve them before they were passed by the British parliament.
In this case, the royal family vetted exemptions left the residents living in homes that have diminishing or no financial values. As per the report, the residents have said that they cannot borrow against their homes to pay, for example, for social care fees for their family and friends. The media outlet also quoted one of the tenants living in Prince Charles’ houses in Somerset village, Jane Giddins saying that a “feudal and anachronistic” system ha ‘unfairly’ favoured the royal family to her family’s detriment. “When we die, our kids will be left with a property that is very difficult to sell,” she said.
These exemptions enable the Prince of Wales to preserve the financial value of his estate and even becomes a source of his income because the tenants have to pay rent to him every year. Moreover, residents also said that they were clueless about why and how the heir to the throne, Prince Charles was able to secure preferential treatment from the UK government. Further, Prince declined to the media outlet for comment when asked if he or his family lobbied the government for exemptions in three acts. Guardian still established that Prince Charles and his mother were permitted to approve the contents of the three acts under an ‘arcane parliamentary process’, the Queen’s consent.
Royals vetted more than 1,000 laws
Meanwhile, the media outlet had previously revealed that more than 1,000 laws have been vetted by Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Charles through a secretive procedure even before they were approved by the UK’s selected members of the parliament. The significant number of laws subject to the royal vetting cover a range of issues. Reportedly, it included justice, social security, pensions, race relations, food policy, rules on car parking charges and hovercraft.
12:42 IST, February 10th 2021