Royals make millions from NHS, files reveal
The Royal family is making millions from the NHS through the monarchy’s property empire.
King Charles’s 750-year-old asset portfolio is billing Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust £829,000 each year to rent a central London warehouse.
The Duchy of Lancaster signed the 15-year lease in 2023 after the NHS trust said it needed help storing a new fleet of electric vehicles to tackle ambulance waiting times.
The revelations form part of a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches, which exposed how the monarchy earns money from contracts with public bodies.
It has sparked a backlash with some criticising the monarchy for lack of transparency over its finances.
Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP, said: “They’ve got to accept they’re not a business.
“Don’t make a profit from public services like the Armed Forces and the NHS. This shows the value of scrutiny, because from now on, if they are charging [a public service], they will know it’s going to be scrutinised and people are going to ask why and they’ve got to justify it.”
Baroness Margaret Hodge, a Labour peer and former chair of the Commons public accounts committee, called for the Royal duchies to pay corporation tax.
“This would be a brilliant time for the monarch to say, I’m going to be open, and I want to be treated as fairly as anybody,” she said.
Other public figures have defended the Royals’ tax affairs. Ben Goldsmith, a British financier and environmentalist, likened the arrangement to Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Media founder, “charging people for broadband”.
“The Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster are private assets which generate an income for members of the Royal family, on which they pay full tax,” he said. “The Royal family owns stuff, like many families in this country. And?”
The rent charged to the NHS for the 27,000 sq ft unit near Tower Bridge is 67 per cent more than the Metropolitan Police was paying for the same property months earlier.
The King, who counts the Duke of Lancaster among his royal titles, will earn £11.4 million from the deal by the time the contract expires in 2038.
It comes despite the Duchy of Lancaster claiming it “is completely self-financing and does not rely on any taxpayers’ money”.
The Royal family has three main sources of income: the Sovereign Grant paid out from the Crown Estate, the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Duchy of Cornwall, which has a property portfolio belonging to the Prince of Wales that spans thousands of acres.
The royal addresses, which cover around 180,000 acres of England and Wales, are largely made up of land seized by medieval monarchs.
The two duchies hold more than 5,400 leases between them, which reportedly generate £50 million each year for King Charles and Prince William. This is in part because the domains benefit from special tax status, meaning they pay no capital gains tax or corporation tax on their profits.
Tax arrangements
It has raised fresh questions over the Royal family’s tax arrangements.
The Duchy of Cornwall’s 67,500-acre share of Dartmoor National Park is among the royal properties charging “feudal levies”, according to the investigation.
It bills the British Army an undisclosed sum each year for the right to train on the land under a 21-year deal struck when the King, who is now the head of the Armed Forces, was the Duke of Cornwall.
Prince William’s duchy has also charged the Ministry of Defence at least £900,000 over the past two decades to moor boats on waters surrounding the Britannia Royal Naval College.
Generations of male royals spanning back to George VI have been taught at the college, which is used to train British naval officers.
HMP Dartmoor, a category C prison for 640 inmates, also earns Prince William millions each year. The heir to the throne’s duchy signed a £37 million deal to lease the prison for 25 years to the Ministry of Justice, which is also liable to spend at least £68 million over the next decade updating the site’s buildings.
The royals also earn money from state schools, underground mines, pubs, car parks, and even a portable toilet supplier that sit on duchy land, according to the investigation.
The Duchy of Lancaster’s coastline assets will also earn the King £28 million over the next 50 years through cable undersea charges for wind farms.
Meanwhile, a 1960s tower block in London owned by Prince William’s duchy has brought in at least £22 million since 2005 from rents paid by charities and other tenants. It includes two cancer charities, Marie Curie and Macmillan, which counts the King as a patron. They both recently moved out to smaller premises.
Both duchies said they operated as commercial operations that comply with statutory requirements to disclose information.
A spokesman for the Duchy of Lancaster said: “The Duchy of Lancaster manages a broad range of land and property assets. It is self-financing and does not receive any public funds in connection with its activities.
“It publishes an annual report and accounts that is independently audited and available to view on its website and complies with all relevant UK legislation and regulatory standards applicable to its range of business activities.”
A Duchy of Cornwall spokesman said: “The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate with a commercial imperative which we achieve alongside our commitment to restoring the natural environment and generating positive social impact for our communities.
“Prince William became Duke of Cornwall in September 2022 and since then has committed to an expansive transformation of the duchy.
“This includes a significant investment to make the estate net zero by the end of 2032, as well as establishing targeted mental health support for our tenants and working with local partners to help tackle homelessness in Cornwall.”
