I published a draft bill for consultation last week designed to remove the special privileges enjoyed by the Duchy of Cornwall and Prince Charles, and regularise the status of the Duchy in respect of the application of many different elements of legislation. It seeks changes to reflect frequent statement by the Duchy and government that it is in the private sector, although in this respect it is unique in paying voluntary tax, gets free advice from government lawyers and has exemptions from legislation that applies to other private sector bodies.
This bill means that the Duchy, like any other private body, would not have crown immunity and it would have to pay income tax and capital gains tax. Leaseholders would have the same ‘right to buy’ as happens elsewhere, and the Duchy would have to comply with planning laws. If someone dies intestate, the Duchy would no longer have the right to claim legacies from people who die intestate within Cornwall.
By way of background, the government over the years has supported the Duchy’s view that it is in the private sector. For example, in responding in the first tier tribunal in Michael Bruton v Information Commissioner and the Duchy of Cornwall, it argued that it did not consider itself to be a public authority for the purposes of environmental legislation. It had previously suggested that, for all practical purposes, the Duchy was above the law.
Thus, since the government and the Duchy both appear to believe that the Duchy is in the private sector, this bill is intended to formalise this status and proposes the necessary alterations to legislation to ensure that the private sector status of the Duchy is the same as other similar private sector organisations. It would remove the ability of the Duchy to obtain free and unlimited legal advice from the Treasury solicitor. As in the Bruton case or in the recent appeal court ruling that the attorney general was wrong to block publication of Charles’ letters to government ministers, it is very difficult and expensive to challenge the Duchy in court.
I have welcomed the House of Commons political and constitutional reform committee’s eleventh report: ‘The impact of Queen’s and Prince’s consent on the legislative process’. But I believe it does not go far enough in removing the need for parliament to seek the consent of the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall, or of any future Duke of Cornwall, to before considering bills that pass through parliament and may affect their private interests.
I have published this draft bill online since there is no process within the House of Lords for publishing draft private members bills and welcome comments until 16 May 2014. I have sent this draft bill for comment to the Duke of Cornwall as well.
In preparing this bill, it has come as somewhat of a surprise to me to see the wide range of legislation on which the Duchy has exemption or special provision, and which appears to me to totally inappropriate in the 21st century. It must stop being a feudal milch cow to fund the heir to the throne.
Tony Berkeley is a Labour peer. He tweets @tonyberkeley1
When considering the wealth of the monarchy and its offspring, an acid test is what could they take with them if forced to abdicate. Not so much. Clearly not the palaces and the art collections, nor the assets of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, nor the Crown Estate properties in London and elsewhere.
So it is a mystery why we cannot devise a form of remuneration for the thankless and frankly utterly tedious roles we expect our head of state to perform. I’ve no idea how much they should be paid, but a cycling monarchy with occasional lunges into the fancy dress of ceremonial will do us fine. I don’t expect them to be real Field Marshals, Admirals, Marshals of the Royal Air Force etc., and would rather they kept the medlas they wore to the minimum especially that truly garish one the Prince of Wales wears which I imagine is the Royal Victorian Order.
Should they pay income tax. Probably yes, but in a sense that is just returning to us the money we pay them. We expect them not to engage in business, and even in farming to perform to a higher standard than obtains in the average muddy farmyard or fertiliser-soaked cornfield.
A problem is we expect them to behave as if middle-class or of the noblesse iblige aristocracy. How do you remunerate that expectation?
The option of an elective head of state fills me with some dread. The prospect of Willie Whitelaw or Roy Hattersley or some other former leading political light being head of state never filled me with enthusiasm, and the prospect of Michael Howard or Bill Rodgers or Andrew Adonis even less.
I don’t know the answer. Clinging to heredity has no logic whatever. We “cling to nurse for fear of something worse”.