King Charles aide breaks silence amid Andrew's Royal Lodge probe

The Royal Family has been increasingly put under pressure to provide accountability over various claims concerning Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor amid multiple probes taking place.

It was revealed last month in the National Audit Office report that the ex-prince Andrew received an undisclosed private income from subletting three cottages of his then-Windsor home Royal Lodge for over two decades. Meanwhile, he only paid peppercorn rent on the 30-room royal property.

The King had ousted his shamed brother after harrowing details emerged about his ties with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, in the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice. Andrew was booted out from the Lodge earlier this year.

The Crown Estate’s chief executive Dan Labbad appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday to answer questions about the Andrew’s accommodation.

“In the case of Royal Lodge, the £7.5 million in refurbishment costs, we were able to then take that money that we would otherwise have to spend, and invest in other things,” he said. “Those potential income streams were taken into account in determining what best value was at the time.”

The King’s treasurer speaks out

King Charles’s keeper of the Privy Purse and treasurer, James Chalmers, suggested that they were willing to help get the required information for the probe.

“What I can say is the role we played with the NAO report, which we can play here, was we gathered the information from the other households, and I believe if the request were made for that information, we could provide it to the National Audit Office and therefore to the committee,” he said. “We can get it.”

There is also a matter of sensitivity surrounding who had access to properties close to the royals.

He said that the royal household has be “very, very careful” about who they allowed to live in “very sensitive” parts of the occupied royal palaces.