Charity vow after Prince Charles feels heat over Qatari cash
The Prince of Wales will never again accept large cash donations on behalf of his charities, a royal source says.
The Prince of Wales will never again accept large cash donations on behalf of his charities, a royal source said.
They added that Charles had not taken any big donations of cash in the past five years.
Charles faced criticism this week after The Sunday Times reported that he was presented with cash totalling 45 million from a former Qatari prime minister between 2011 and 2015.
The newspaper said he personally accepted the donations for his charity the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF) from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who was prime minister of Qatar from 2007 to 2013.
But a source said: “That was then. This is now.”
The anti-monarchist campaign group Republic had demanded full disclosure over the matter, saying it raised “serious questions about Prince Charles’s judgment”.
The royal source said: “It was passed immediately to his charities and it was his charities who decided to accept the money - that is a decision for them.
“As they confirmed, it followed all the right processes, the auditors looked at it. The Prince of Wales operates on advice. Situations, contexts change over the years.”
The source added: “For more than half a decade, with the situation as it has evolved, this has not happened and it would not happen again.”
Clarence House said the donations were “passed immediately” to the PWCF and that “appropriate governance” was carried out.
The issue was raised as Buckingham Palace revealed that the monarchy’s net expenditure was pounds 102.4 million during 2021/22 - an increase of pounds 14.9 million, or 17 per cent, on the previous year.
Royal activity, curtailed by the pandemic, was beginning to pick up during the period and expenditure has increased in a number of areas, with travel rising by pounds 1.3 million to pounds 4.5 million. Property maintenance increased by pounds 14.4 million to pounds 63.9 million, which included the pounds 47.8 million spent as part of the ten-year project to renovate Buckingham Palace.
The Sovereign Grant, which funds the Queen’s official expenditure, increased marginally by pounds 400,000 to pounds 86.3 million during 2021/22. On top of the core pounds 51.8 million there is an extra pounds 34.5 million to go towards continued re-servicing costs for the palace.
Sir Michael Stevens, keeper of the privy purse, said that, as planned, the shortfall between the pounds 102.4 million spent on the monarchy and the pounds 86.3 million Sovereign Grant was met by drawing on reserves and supplementary income from sources including the Royal Collection Trust.
Stevens, who is responsible for the financial management of the royal household, said: “Looking ahead, with the Sovereign Grant likely to be flat in the next couple of years, inflationary pressures and our ability to grow supplementary income likely to be constrained, we will continue to deliver against our plans and manage these impacts through our own efforts.”
The Times
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