The Windsor family is resisting greater parliamentary scrutiny of its £21m annual income from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.
Parliament’s public accounts committee wants the Treasury to review the workings of the duchies and for their accounts to be audited by the National Audit Office.
The family’s head of finance, Michael Peat, said that the committee was wrong to believe that duchies were accountable to parliament. He claimed that they were the private property of the Windsors.
Under Britain’s feudal system the income from the duchies is given to the hereditary head of state and to the next in line for that public office. When Charles Windsor becomes head of state he will lose the income he currently receives from the Cornwall duchy but will receive the income from the Duchy of Lancaster that currently goes to his mother.