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The Royal Family are receiving millions in rent from charities and public services including the NHS and state schools, a new investigation has revealed.
The investigation from Channel 4’s Dispatches and the Sunday Times found that the property empires of King Charles and Prince William will make at least £50m from leasing land to public services.
The Duchy of Lancaster is the estate held by the British sovereign, King Charles, whilst Prince William’s estate is called the Duchy of Cornwall.
Together, the two portfolios hold a total of more than 5,400 leases. They are exempt from business taxes and used to fund the royals’ lifestyles and philanthropic work.
According to the Dispatches report – called ‘The King, The Prince and Their Secret Millions’ – the private estates have received millions of pounds of income from contracts with public bodies and charities.
This includes one 15-year deal which will see Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS hospital trust in London pay £11.4m to store its fleet of electric ambulances in a warehouse owned by the Duchy of Lancaster.
Another deal is said to include a £37 million agreement between the Duchy of Cornwall and the Ministry of Justice to lease Dartmoor Prison for 25 years.
The Prince of Wales’s estate also includes Camelford House, a tower block on the banks of the Thames built in the 1960s. This block has bought in at least £22m in rents paid by charities and other tenants since 2005.
The cancer charities Marie Curie and Macmillan have both recently moved out of the block to smaller premises.
The investigation also found that many of the residential properties let out by the royal estates were in breach of government efficiency standards. For the Duchy of Cornwall, 14 per cent of homes had an energy performance rating of F or G, whilst it was 13 per cent of homes in the Duchy of Lancaster’s case.
The documentary also revealed the estates have contracts with mining companies, raising further environmental concerns.
A spokesperson for the Duchy of Lancaster said it “complies with all relevant UK legislation and regulatory standards applicable to its range of business activities”.
They added the estate operates “as a commercial company, managing a broad range of land and property assets across England and Wales”.
Meanwhile, a Duchy of Cornwall spokesperson said it is “a private estate with a commercial imperative which we achieve alongside our commitment to restoring the natural environment and generating positive social impact for our communities”.
Addressing the mining issue, the spokesperson said that the duchy was “acting responsibly and in a sustainable way” to the government’s industrial strategy.
The Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are separate to the Crown Estate, which is a property business owned by the monarch by run independently. The profits from this go to the Treasury, with this figure used to calculate the funding given by taxpayers to the Royal Family in the form of the Sovereign Grant.
The Sovereign Grant is set to rise to £132m in 2025-26, up from £86m in 2024-25.
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