ROYAL PROPERTY PROBE SPARKS OUTRAGE As ‘WORRYING’ Findings Expose ‘INAPPROPRIATE’ Taxpayer Cash Use And Leave Britain Demanding Answers Today Online

Baroness Hodge has said the outcome of the NAO report is ‘shocking’ (Image: Getty)

The former chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee said: “The other thing that is worrying is that people like Beatrice and Eugenie and the Kents – Prince Michael of Kent and his wife – were also being subsidised in the way that they were living on the estate, they weren’t paying rent, and yet they’re not working royals. Now, is it appropriate for non-working royals to be subsidised by the taxpayer from a fund that belongs to the taxpayer?”

Baroness Hodge added: “The Crown Estates is our money, it’s taxpayers’ money, it’s not theirs, and whoever runs that has to always ensure the taxpayers’ interest.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, the Labour peer also voiced concern that the NAO did not establish Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s income from subletting royal properties.

She said she was “very concerned” the National Audit Office was “not able to find how much money was being secured by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from letting the properties” and about how its report did not cover “all of the Crown Estate properties”.

The Labour peer, chairwoman of the committee from 2010 to 2015, said: “We all want a royal family to be continued to be respected, valued, and treasured. I want a royal family, but in a modern era that does require proper transparency and accountability.

“It’s shocking that the National Audit Office was not able to establish how much money Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor secured from the properties he let.”

Her comments follow the publication of the report by the National Audit Office into the Firm’s residential property arrangements.

It found that Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, the daughters of disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, do not pay rent on their homes at the royal palaces.

The King foots the bill, despite the York sisters having primary residences elsewhere and not being working members of the Royal Family, and their adjusted rents were based on outdated market valuations.

It also found that the former Duke of York received undisclosed income from renting out three properties on his Royal Lodge estate, despite paying only a peppercorn rent for living at the Windsor mansion for over 30 years.

Other key findings include that the monarch is paying the rent of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, and his wife, at Kensington Palace, despite Buckingham Palace announcing that from 2010, the couple would foot the then-£120,000 yearly rent themselves.