Commons inquiry into Prince Andrew’s rent-free housing gets closer as public accounts committee requests details of lease
Yesterday Keir Starmer told MPs that he favoured a parliamentary inquiry covering Prince Andrew’s housing arrangements at Royal Lodge – the mansion in Windsor which he leases from the crown estate on a deal that involves him paying no rent.
Today the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said it is going to be asking the crown estate for more details of Andrew’s lease arrangements – in what would be the first step towards a full investigation.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said:
The public accounts committee will be writing in the coming days to the crown estate commissioners and HM Treasury, seeking further information on the lease arrangements for Royal Lodge.
In the correspondence, our cross-party committee will be raising a number of questions with the crown estate and HM Treasury. This forms part of our longstanding remit, on behalf of parliament and the British public, to examine the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of public spending, and ensure the taxpayer is receiving best value for money.
Our committee has a further opportunity in 2026 to consider the annual report and accounts for the crown estate, and will make a decision on whether to undertake any work on this in the normal way. We will review the response we receive to our forthcoming correspondence, and will consider at that time whether to seek further information.
In the past the PAC has published reports looking at royal finances. But it has not taken evidence from members of the royal family directly, and Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, who wants to see Andrew summoned to parliament to face questions from MPs, is unlikely to get his wish granted any time soon.
Clifton-Brown does not really need to write to the crown estate for details of the lease; they were published in the Times on Monday evening, after the crown estate responded to a Freedom of Information request. Official bodies normally take weeks or months to respond to FoI requests. But George Greenwood, the journalist who broke the story, said he got a reply on the day – suggesting somone at the crown estate was not unhappy about the idea of this information appearing in the public domain.
The paper said:
The Times obtained a copy of the leasehold agreement for Royal Lodge, revealing the terms under which the prince lives on the 30-room estate.
It states that, while the prince paid £1m for the lease plus at least £7.5 million for refurbishments completed in 2005, he has paid “one peppercorn (if demanded)” in rent per year, since 2003.
He and his family are entitled to live in the property until 2078.
Key events
Conservatives complain to whips about fellow MP’s comments on legally settled people
Conservative MPs have complained to party whips after Katie Lam said many legally settled people should be deported to make the UK “culturally coherent”, the Guardian has learned. Eleni Courea and Peter Walker have the story.
Labour and Tory thinktanks welcome affordable housing quotas being cut for London in bid to boost development
As expected, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has confirmed that it will allow builders to qualify for fast-track planning approval if their developments contain 2% affordable housing – rather than 35%, the current minimum.
MHCLG said this was housing building in Londo “has faced significant challenges over recent years due to a combination of the legacy of the previous government, impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, high interest rates, spiralling construction costs, regulatory blockers and wider economic conditions”.
In its news release, MHCLG said:
Time-limited, emergency measures, which are subject to consultation, will unlock development by making sites more viable and incentivise developers to get spades in the ground through a fast-tracked planning process for sites with at least 20 per cent affordable housing. Targeted measures will tackle squeezed viability, including the removal of design guidance that constrains density and temporary relief from development levies for schemes able to start promptly and guarantee affordable homes for Londoners.
Today’s package will mean that more homes – including affordable homes and those for social rent – can be built and built faster. This ‘use it or lose it’ route will come with strict conditions to speed up the delivery of new homes, which if not met will require developers to share their profits with local boroughs to deliver more affordable homes.
Unusually, the announcement has been welcomed by thinktanks on the left and the right.
This is from Ben Cooper, head of the Fabian Housing Centre, the housing wing of the Labour thinktank, the Fabian Society.
The collapse of housebuilding in London is the legacy of the previous government, piling up costs on housebuilders and failing to ensure quick planning decisions. Unless this is tackled swiftly, London’s housing crisis will continue to devastate families and communities – leaving thousands trapped in temporary accommodation and many more struggling with the cost of rent or unable to buy.
That is why this package is critical to kickstart building in London over the next two years. Additional powers for the mayor will ensure that every part of London is making its contribution to tackling the housing crisis and meeting the 1.5m new homes target. The temporary reduction in the affordable housing target is a regrettable necessity, to ensure that we don’t see the delivery of affordable and social housing grind to a halt in London.
And this is from Ben Hopkinson, head of housing and infrastracture at the Centre for Policy Studies, a Conservative thinktank.
The government’s support for housebuilding in London is welcome, and the new policy paper contains some encouraging elements.
The removal of costly regulations like those requiring dual aspect and the changes to high affordability requirements, as the CPS has repeatedly called for, are especially good news.
The Centre for London also welcomed the news. Its CEO, Antonia Jennings, said:
The 35% affordable homes target for new developments is admirable, and it’s one London should strive for in the long-term.
The reality is, however, that 35% of nothing, is nothing. When no new developments are being built, there will be no new social homes.
The Labour MP Lloyd Hatton, who has been among those pushing for a fuller inquiry into Prince Andrew, welcomeed the announcement from the public accounts committee. (See 3.31pm.)
He said:
It’s good news the public accounts committee is beginning to take a much closer look at this pressing matter. We must scrutinise any taxpayers’ money that may be linked to the Royal Lodge. The public rightly expect parliament to get to the bottom of this.
Spending less than 8% of new fishing fund on Scotland ‘madness’, MPs told
The food minister has faced calls to explain the “ocean-going madness” of spending less than 8% of a new fishing fund on Scotland, PA Media reports. PA says:
During a Commns urgent question this morning Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael pressed Angela Eagle to say when she planned to look again at Scotland’s £28m allocation from the £360m UK-wide package.
Scotland lands the most fish by quantity and value out of the four UK nations, according to the Government, and the Scottish fishing fleet has landed more than three-quarters of UK quota species, such as cod, haddock and herring, over recent years.
The government earlier this year set out its intention to back coastal communities with funding when negotiators struck a 12-year agreement with the EU, granting British fishing access and rights with no increase in the amount which EU vessels can catch in UK waters.
“We are working closely with our fishing and seafood sectors to ensure that they’re vibrant, profitable and sustainable alongside a healthy and productive marine environment,” Eagle told the Commons.
She said the Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund will “support the next generation of fishers and breathe new life into our coastal communities”.
Eagle continued: “This fund recognises the vital contribution that fishing and coastal communities make to our economy, local communities and national heritage. Designing this fund with stakeholders is paramount to its success, and we want to work with industry and communities to get their views on how to maximise value, and target investment for maximum local impact.”
The minister added the fund “would be devolved, providing devolved governments with full discretion of how to allocate funding and reaffirming this Government’s commitment to devolution”, with the allocations for Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont based on the Barnett Formula.
Carmichael, who chairs the Commons’ environment committee, told MPs: “Let’s not forget that this fund was created because the prime minister went and rolled over for 12 years the catastrophically bad deal that Boris Johnson gave us for five.
“If the minister is sincere when she says that the aim of the government is to maximise local investment, then to use the Barnett Formula to distribute this is ocean-going madness.”
Brendan O’Hara described the allocation as a “kick in the teeth to those fishing communities” in his Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber constituency.
Mairi Gougeon, the Scottish government’s rural affairs secretary, has previously written to Eagle, describing the allocation as “wholly unacceptable”.
Wales’s Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund allocation was £18m, with Northern Ireland set to receive £10m.
Commons inquiry into Prince Andrew’s rent-free housing gets closer as public accounts committee requests details of lease
Yesterday Keir Starmer told MPs that he favoured a parliamentary inquiry covering Prince Andrew’s housing arrangements at Royal Lodge – the mansion in Windsor which he leases from the crown estate on a deal that involves him paying no rent.
Today the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said it is going to be asking the crown estate for more details of Andrew’s lease arrangements – in what would be the first step towards a full investigation.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said:
The public accounts committee will be writing in the coming days to the crown estate commissioners and HM Treasury, seeking further information on the lease arrangements for Royal Lodge.
In the correspondence, our cross-party committee will be raising a number of questions with the crown estate and HM Treasury. This forms part of our longstanding remit, on behalf of parliament and the British public, to examine the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of public spending, and ensure the taxpayer is receiving best value for money.
Our committee has a further opportunity in 2026 to consider the annual report and accounts for the crown estate, and will make a decision on whether to undertake any work on this in the normal way. We will review the response we receive to our forthcoming correspondence, and will consider at that time whether to seek further information.
In the past the PAC has published reports looking at royal finances. But it has not taken evidence from members of the royal family directly, and Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, who wants to see Andrew summoned to parliament to face questions from MPs, is unlikely to get his wish granted any time soon.
Clifton-Brown does not really need to write to the crown estate for details of the lease; they were published in the Times on Monday evening, after the crown estate responded to a Freedom of Information request. Official bodies normally take weeks or months to respond to FoI requests. But George Greenwood, the journalist who broke the story, said he got a reply on the day – suggesting somone at the crown estate was not unhappy about the idea of this information appearing in the public domain.
The paper said:
The Times obtained a copy of the leasehold agreement for Royal Lodge, revealing the terms under which the prince lives on the 30-room estate.
It states that, while the prince paid £1m for the lease plus at least £7.5 million for refurbishments completed in 2005, he has paid “one peppercorn (if demanded)” in rent per year, since 2003.
He and his family are entitled to live in the property until 2078.
Five grooming gang survivors tell PM they will stay on panel only if Jess Phillips remains in post
Five survivors invited on to the child sexual exploitation inquiry panel have written to Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood to say they will continue working with the investigation only if the safeguarding minister Jess Phillips remains in post, Geraldine McKelvie reports.
James Cleverly is probably not the only senior Tory who is not aware of the full details of the party’s plan to revoke indefinite leave to remain from many people, including people who have been in receipt of benefits and people earning less than £38,700 a year. (See 12.27pm.) The proposal is so extreme that it is safe to assume that it did not get proper scrutiny before Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, published it in a private member’s bill. In a column for the Financial Times, Stephen Bush says this could lead to 5% of the UK’s legal population being deported. He says;
[The proposal] essentially means that almost anyone who works in the UK for most of their working life is not going to be able to retire in the UK — which if you are in any way integrated to the country is going to be a huge wrench for you, your friends, neighbours and at least some of your family members.
In scale, these proposals would mean deporting greater numbers and a greater proportion of the population than former Ugandan President Idi Amin’s deportation of Ugandan Asians. This scale of population movement is comparable to that which happened with the partition of India and Pakistan and the foundation of the state of Israel …
Politically, the big winner here is Nigel Farage. That the Conservative party increasingly holds positions that are further from mainstream British public opinion than Reform, and does so while being blamed by the public for many of the UK’s problems today, is a gift to him in his quest to first become the dominant force on the British right and then to win an election.
My colleague Rafael Behr says he has heard suggestions that the Tories published their bill before Kemi Badenoch had even read it.
I have heard it plausibly suggested that Badenoch herself may well not have bothered reading the draft bill, or not closely enough to grasp what was actually being proposed. And …
… far from Lam “freelancing” in ST as some Tories have tried to hint since Sunday, she may, as eager newbie, have mistakenly assumed the boss knew what official party policy was. Rookie error.
Starmer announces £10m in extra funding to protect mosques and Muslim faith centres during visit to Peacehaven
Keir Starmer was visiting the Peacehaven mosque in East Sussex today, which was subject to an arson attack earlier this month, to announce an extra £10m in funding for mosques and Muslim faith centres.
No 10 said the invement would provide “vital security measures including CCTV, alarm systems, secure fencing and security personnel services”, and that it would be in addition to the £29.4m already allocated this year for mosques and Muslim faith schools.
Anti-Muslim hate crime rose by 19% in the year ending March 2025, and it accounts for 44% of all religious hate crime, No 10 said.
Starmer said:
Britain is a proud and tolerant country. Attacks on any community are attacks on our entire nation and our values. This funding will provide Muslim communities with the protection they need and deserve, allowing them to live in peace and safety.
DfE welcomes figures showing school attendance rates in England improving, though still below pre-Covid levels
Richard Adams
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor.
School attendance rates in England continued to improve in the last academic year, according to data released by the Department for Education (DfE), although returning to pre-pandemic levels has been slowed by a core of severely absent pupils and higher levels of absence among pupils with special educational needs.
The figures for the autumn and spring terms of 2024-25 show an across the board decline in absences compared with the previous year. There was a sharp fall in the number of pupils classed as persistently absent, missing 10% or more of classroom sessions, down by more than 100,000 to nearly 1.3m. But the number who were severely absent after missing 50% or more rose slightly by 8,000, to 166,000.
In state primary schools the absence rate dropped to 5.2% and in secondaries to 8.1%, continuing the gradual recovery from the spike seen after the Covid pandemic. But both remain above pre-Covid levels of 3.9% and 5.2% respectively, with absence because of illness remaining the major factor.
A DfE spokesperson noted that the current Covid inquiry was “laying bare” the extent of the impact on children and school absence:
This government is taking the action needed to get our kids back in school, with the biggest improvement in attendance in a decade last academic year. Absence is down, persistent absence has plummeted and we are slowing the stubborn rise in severe absence.
Through free breakfast clubs in every primary school, an attendance mentoring programme, and ensuring earlier intervention for children with special needs we are creating a school system that serves not just some children, but supports every child to achieve and thrive.
But the Liberal Democrats pointed to figures showing that persistent absence among children with special needs increased to more than 72,000 over the period, up by more than 8,000 in a year.
Munira Wilson, the Lib Dem education and children spokesperson, said:
Children with special needs are missing more school than ever before – with the very system meant to support vulnerable children posing a serious risk to their future.
Starmer says ‘of course’ he has faith in safeguarding minister Jess Phillips
Keir Starmer has reaffirmed his confidence in Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, despite some grooming gang survivors calling for her resignation. (See 8.51am.)
Speaking to broadcasters this morning, he said:
The most important thing in relation to the grooming gangs is that we have the national inquiry and that absolutely gets to the truth and to justice.
Asked if he had faith in Phillips, Starmer replied:
Yes, of course, I do.
Jess has been working on issues involving violence against women and girls for many, many years.
According to PA Media, Starmer intends to reach out to victims in the light of what has happened.
Starmer rejects claim return of man deported to France under ‘one in, one out’ scheme has left plan ‘in tatters’
Keir Starmer has insisted his approach to tackling small boats crossing the Channel remains on course despite an Iranian man re-entering the UK after being returned to France.
Speaking to broadcasters today, Starmer said the man, who now claims to be a victim of modern slavery, would be “fast-tracked back out of the country”.
He told broadcasters:
We know he hasn’t got a claim to make, therefore we’ll remove him very, very swiftly.
So his return journey back to United Kingdom is completely pointless, and it’s really important I make that absolutely clear.
The man had been returned from the UK to France in September under the “one in, one out” deal struck over the summer, but came back across the Channel in a small boat a month later, PA Media reports.
Starmer denied that the government’s approach to stopping small boats was “in tatters”, while earlier, David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, said the identification and detention of the Iranian man was a sign of “progress”.
Mahmood says violence against women and girls ‘national emergency’ as recorded sexual offences reach record high
Rajeev Syal
Rajeev Syal is the Guardian’s home affairs editor.
The Office for National Statistics report also says that the number of sexual offences, including rape, recorded by the police is at a record level since current reporting methods were established.
The report says:
There have been general increases in police recorded sexual offences over the last decade, largely because of improvements in police recording practices. There was a 9% increase in YE [the year ending] June 2025 (to 211,225 offences), compared with the previous year (193,684 offences). This is partly because of the introduction of two new sexual offences subcodes in January 2024. These subcodes relate to sending or sharing intimate photographs or films following the Online Safety Act 2023.
Around 34% (72,804 offences) of all sexual offences recorded by the police in YE June 2025 were rape offences. This was a 6% increase, compared with YE June 2024 (68,970 offences).
But the ONS also says that the police recorded crime figures are not a good way of measuring trends over time, because new offences are created, police recording methods change, and there has been an increase in the number of victims reporting offences.
The ONS also looks at Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) figures, and these are considered a more reliable guide to trends over time because the CSEW measures if people say they have been a victim of crime, regardless of whether or not the offence was reported to the police.
It says;
When analysing long-term trends, we use the 16 to 59 years age range to give a comparable data time series. The prevalence of sexual assault among people aged 16 to 59 years has fluctuated between 1.5% and 3.0% over the last 20 years. Over the last 10 years there has been an increase in sexual assault, after a previous decrease from YE March 2005 to YE March 2014. In the YE March 2025 survey, 2.4% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced sexual assault, compared with 1.7% in the YE March 2015 survey.
Commenting on the figures, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said these figures showed why the government was treating violence against women and girls as a “national emergency”. She said:
These figures tell us what, tragically, many have long known: violence against women and girls is a national emergency.
It is encouraging to see from this data that victims are coming forward, and that police and prosecutors are acting. These crimes too often go unreported, and we cannot solve a crisis until we can see it fully.
Now, we must redouble our efforts to eradicate this evil. That’s why this government has made it our mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, as part of our Plan for Change.
As home secretary, I will ensure police have the tools to relentlessly pursue dangerous offenders and that victims receive the support they need.
Homicide rate in England and Wales down to lowest rate for at least two decades, ONS says
The number of homicides recorded by police in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level since current methods of reporting began in 2003, PA Media reports. PA says:
Some 518 homicides were recorded in the year to June, including 444 offences of murder and 68 of manslaughter, according to a report from the Office for National Statistics.
This is a drop of 6% from 552 in the previous year and 27% below the pre-pandemic total of 710 in 2019/20.
The current method of recording homicides dates from 2002/03, when the figure stood at 1,047 – although this includes the 173 victims of serial killer doctor Harold Shipman.
The homicide rate in the year to June stood at 8.4 offences per million people – the lowest level since the 1970s, the Home Office said.
New crime figures for England and Wales published this morning also show there were 51,527 knife offences recorded by forces in the 12 months to June, down year on year by 5%.
Other types of police-recorded offences increased, with shoplifting up 13% year on year to 529,994 – just below the recent all-time high – and theft from the person at 145,860, up 5%.
Reform’s only Black branch chair quits over ‘harmful’ migration debate
The only Black branch chair of Reform UK has left the rightwing populist party, saying the tone of Britain’s migration debate is “doing more harm than good”, Chris Osuh reports.
Cleverly wrongly claims Tory deportation policy would not retrospectively impact people with indefinite leave to remain
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
The Conservatives’ policy of retrospectively removing the right to live in the UK from large numbers of families appears to be causing confusion even among shadow ministers, with James Cleverly arguing this morning that the plan would not affect life for people who already have indefinite leave to remain.
Quizzed about the proposals, as set out in an interview over the weekend by Katie Lam, a junior Home Office frontbencher for the Tories, Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, denied that people already with ILR could be removed under a future Conservative government.
He told Times Radio:
That’s not the full detail of the policy. That’s not quite the right interpretation of the policy. What we’re saying is indefinite leave to remain needs to be tighter.
Pressed on whether the changes would be retrospective, he said:
Retrospective changes are not what we are talking about as our policy.
This is curious, given that the Conservative plans on ILR, as set out in a draft bill presented by the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, explicitly sets out that people with ILR can have this removed if they commit a crime, claim any kind of benefits, or earn less than £38,700 for six months or longer. The section is even titled “Revocation of Indefinite Leave to Remain in certain circumstances”.
Assuming this is still the policy – and Kemi Badenoch’s spokesperson said it was on Wednesday, and even explicitly defended the retrospective aspect – it is unusual for someone like Cleverly, who was both home secretary and shadow home secretary, to not be across the details.
In fairness to him, while Philp’s bill was tabled in May, few people paid much attention before Lam’s comments. The details of how the deportations would work, including whether it might involve splitting up families, are also still unclear.
Claire Coutinho claims Tony Blair’s thinktank ‘catching up’ with Tories after it says 2030 ‘clean power’ target should be dropped
The Tories have welcomed a report from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the former Labour’s PMs thinktank, saying the government should drop its plan to decarbonise electricity production in the UK by 2030.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, claimed that the TBI was “catching up” with the Conservative party – even though the thinktank tank is not supporting the Tory call for the 2050 net zero target to be abandoned.
In a report, the TBI said that, while the 2030 clean power mission was laudable when it was launched as one of Keir Starmer’s five missions in 2023, the government should now be focusing more on cost of living issues. The TBI report said:
Launched in the middle of the gas crisis and in a low-interest environment, [the clean power misison] was right for its time, but circumstances have changed. The UK now needs more than a decarbonisation plan. It needs a full-spectrum energy strategy built on growth, resilience and abundant clean electricity. This means prioritising cost, flexibility and long-term stability – the real building blocks of electrification – not just short-term emissions cuts …
To focus minds across government, the clean power 2030 mission should therefore be reframed as cheaper power 2030, net zero 2050.
The UK’s commitment to net zero remains firm. Britain led the world in enshrining the Climate Change Act, and that legal duty stands. While some have suggested walking back the country’s commitment to the Climate Change Act or to achieving net zero by 2050, that choice would amount to rolling back progress. The question is no longer whether to decarbonise, but how – how to deliver clean power affordably, securely and with public support.
This passage does not mention the fact that Blair himself was at one point one of those suggesting “walking back” on net zero 2050. Blair has subsequently clarified his thinking, and his thinktank backs the Climate Change Act – unlike the Conserative party, that wants to repeal it.
But this did not stop Coutinho this morning claiming that Blair is on her side. She said:
I’m glad Tony Blair’s thinktank has been copy-and-pasting my speeches. Energy is prosperity and the priority for any energy policy has to be dealing with the fact that we have got the most expensive electricity in the world.
The Conservative party are the only party with a plan to cut bills. We will axe the carbon tax to cut bills for every family instantly. It’s good that the TBI is catching up – and now it’s time for Ed Miliband to adopt our cheap power plan to cut electricity bills by 20% tomorrow.
Commenting on the TBI report, a spokesperson for Miliband’s energy department said:
This report rightly recognises that clean power is the right choice for this country. This government’s clean power mission is exactly how we will deliver cheaper power and bring down bills for good.
As Kiran Stacey and Helena Horton report, the TBI may be on to something; ministers believe they may have to accept that they won’t be able to achieve the clean power 2030 target because they need to keep energy bills down.
Renewable energy investment should come from defence budgets, say retired military leaders
Investment in renewable energy should be counted under defence expenditure, says a group of retired senior military personnel, because the climate crisis represents a threat to national security, Fiona Harvey reports.
