The government is refusing to make time in parliament for MPs to debate the conduct of Prince Andrew amid a flood of new allegations against him.
The prime minister’s spokesperson told reporters: “Prince Andrew has already confirmed he will not use his titles.
“We support the decision made by the Royal Family, and we know the Royal Family would not want to take time from other important issues.”
The only way for MPs to discuss the disgraced royal’s friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his peppercorn rent for a mansion would be for the government to make time in the parliamentary timetable.
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Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said there is no ban on MPs discussing the conduct of a member of the Royal Family, but it would have to be on a “substantive motion” rather than during regular question time sessions.
Substantive motions can be tabled by the government, opposition parties in opposition day debates, and by backbenchers through an application to the Backbench Business Committee.
In response to repeated questions from journalists about why Number 10 was blocking a debate in the main chamber, the spokesman said: “I don’t accept that. Any decision by committees to scrutinise developments are a matter for them.”
Asked whether No 10 viewed it as a waste of parliamentary time to discuss Andrew’s lease of the Royal Lodge on a peppercorn rent, the spokesperson said: “That’s not what I’ve said.”
The chair of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said in a statement on Thursday that they 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”.
“We will review the response we receive to our forthcoming correspondence, and will consider at that time whether to seek further information,” he added.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said earlier that Sir Keir Starmer “supports proper scrutiny of the crown estates and all uses of taxpayers’ money”, and appeared to back a committee investigation during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
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Calls for dukedom to be revoked
Pressure has been rapidly increasing on the King’s brother – who announced last week he would stop using his Duke of York title and his knighthood – after revelations in the posthumous memoir of his sex accuser, Virginia Giuffre.
Reports also emerged over the weekend that claimed Prince Andrew asked a royal close protection officer to “dig up dirt” on the late Ms Giuffre.
As a result of these new allegations, the Metropolitan Police said it is “actively looking into the claims”.
There are growing calls for his dukedom to be formally revoked, which can only be done by an act of parliament, and for him to give up his 30-room Royal Lodge home in Windsor Great Park after it emerged he paid a peppercorn rent for more than 20 years.
‘We are guided by the palace’
Commons leader Sir Alan Campbell was asked on Thursday whether MPs would have time to debate a motion put forward by the Scottish National Party to create a new law to formally strip Andrew of his dukedom.
The leader of the SNP in Westminster, Stephen Flynn, said: “I have laid a motion before this House which calls on the government to listen to parliamentarians and to listen to the public and to listen to victims and take legislative action to remove the dukedom from Prince Andrew.
“When is the government going to come forward with that legislation?”
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Sir Alan said: “I know that there’s been speculation about legislation. But the palace have been clear that they recognise that there are other matters that this House needs to be getting on with, and we are guided in this by the palace.
“That doesn’t mean that the House can’t find ways of debating these matters, whether it be the matter of titles, or whether it be a matter of the finances, which I know are under question here.”
Prince Andrew has repeatedly and vehemently denied the claims against him made by the late Ms Giuffre.
But a Buckingham Palace source has told Sky News that the “new allegations that have been brought up” are of “very serious and grave concern” and “should be examined in the proper and fullest ways”.
