Rees-Mogg slams the Public Accounts Committee for focusing on ‘trivia’ of Princess Alexandra’s housing

SIR Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the Public Accounts Committee should be looking at the welfare budget of the UK not the housing arrangements of minor royals.

Speaking on GB News, he said: “Because of all the rows about the former Prince Andrew, people have been looking at the Crown estates; what they are, how they work, and who benefits from them. So let’s get back to history.

“At the beginning of the reign of George III in 1760 the king was meant to pay for a large slice of the government, and this came out of the crown estates. If we go back to Elizabeth first, the royal income was meant to pay for the whole of government.

“This had become impractical in the 18th century, and George III did a deal: he handed over the crown estates for his reign, and in return, got a civil list, an amount which could be used to fund the living expenses of the monarchy, indeed, of the whole Royal Family.

“This carried on with various changes, uprating for inflation of the civil list, until the sovereign grant was introduced in about 2010 which gave a percentage of the Crown Estate’s revenue to the crown. Subsequently, of course, King Charles III.

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“That is an income from which the functioning of the Royal Family is meant to take place. But the crown estates are the patrimony of the King. They don’t belong to anybody else. They don’t belong to you the taxpayer, they don’t belong to the government; they are the King’s property, which he pays, probably, in reality, a higher tax rate than anybody else in the land, because he gives most of it to his government. It is, after all, His Majesty’s government.

“The land originates in the mist of time. A lot of it, of course, would have been taken by William the Conqueror, and then quite a chunk would have been taken from the monasteries when the monasteries were dissolved in the 16th century.

“What does the Crown Estate own? It owns Regent Street. It owns vast swathes of the centre of London. It owns Pall Mall and so on. And revenue comes from this, and it’s now shared between the King and his subjects in the form of His Majesty’s Government.

“Within that the crown estates own properties that the King and his family live in, and these are subject to commercial or semi commercial leases. Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, paid £5 million for his lease and then has to pay a peppercorn rent every year for the lifetime of this lease.

“This is utterly standard. This is not something that doesn’t happen in other contexts, that people pay an upfront fee and then a peppercorn rent. It’s how leases historically have often worked.

“And yet, this is what the Public Accounts Committee wants to look into, and isn’t it just the most enormous waste of time? So I’ve got in front of me this wonderful book produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the chairmanless Office for Budget Responsibility.

“I’ve turned to page 132 because it lists welfare spending from 2024 to 2030/31.

“And we’re not talking about a few million pounds, a few £100,000s. We’re not talking about an odd little lease. We’re talking about an increase in welfare spending from £314.7 billion of your money to £406.2 billion expenditure of your money.

“The dear old Public Accounts Committee want to prioritise this, it wants to prioritise the housing arrangements of Princess Alexandra. Princess Alexandra is a wonderful lady who has served this nation for all of her life. She lives in a house in Richmond and that’s what they want to look at?

“Surely, when this nation is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy; as we are running out of cash as we are taxing too much and spending too much, we should be focusing on the big things, not the little things?

“And the reason for this is that the committee got over excited by a news story. It has an excellent chairman in the form of Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, but unfortunately, he has a Labour and Lib Dem majority on his committee who have been pushing to look at something that they think will make them look pretty in the camera lights, rather than getting on with their proper job.

“The Public Accounts Committee is the most distinguished committee in Parliament. It was set up in the 19th century to make sure the government spent your money properly. It still doesn’t spend your money properly, but nonetheless, there’s a committee that looks at it.

“Surely it should be looking at the big items: what matters, what affects you, the way taxes are raised and spent, not on the trivia they hope will get them on to the news.”