Enda Brady: UK correspondent on MPs calling for inquiry into Andrew's Royal Lodge rent deal

There's growing calls to investigate Prince Andrew’s residence at Royal Lodge, with MPs in the UK expressing clear interest in an inquiry.

Keir Starmer has indicated he is open to MPs questioning Andrew in person about his home in Windsor Great Park, where he's lived for over 20 years without paying rent. 

UK correspondent Enda Brady explains whether Andrew is likely to agree to this.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now into brady Ow UK correspondence with us Eloinda.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey, Heather, good to speak to you again.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, so you were right about them stripping last week
about them stripping the titles. Will sort of write about
them stripping the titles from Prince Andrew. But by the
looks of things, they did not go nearly far enough,
because now they're being dragged into this business with the rent,
aren't they.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
He hasn't paid any his entire adult life. That's what
we know, discover Prince Andrew has never paid rent, not
only on the Royal Lodge where he lives with Sarah
ferguson different wings of a huge house mansion. They've paid
no rent there since they moved in twenty three years ago.
And then prior to that he was in a place
called sunning Hill Park and his mother was picking up

(00:39):
the tab. So ultimately the taxpayer has funded Andrew's Well
we've known this. He's paid no rent his entire adult life.
Now what's interesting now is during Prime Minister's Questions, the
leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, asked the Prime Minister,
Keir Starmer, do you agree we should look at the
Crown Estate and the living arrangements of Andrew so we

(01:00):
can make sure taxpayer's money is being used properly.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
And in terms of.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Looking at the arrangements, what they're calling for is a
Select Committee inquiry looking at the Crown estate, which would
mean MP's grilling people involved, and technically, theoretically they could
drag Andrew before Parliament knowing Andrew, he's not gonna if
you wouldn't cooperate with the FBI over the abuse of
young girls, He's not going to want to talk about

(01:26):
his own house.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
How damaging is it, though, inda the allegations that when
the last time they did one of these Select Committee
inquiries twenty years ago, when that happened, the Royals blocked
the information from coming out because obviously they were embarrassed
by the fact that he didn't he didn't parent. How
there How damaging is this of the Royals.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I think Andrew is basically a grenade rattling around the
dining room floor at the moment, and people are kicking
it from one end of the room to the next.
And I think what William wants is him out completely,
not he's out of the Royal family already. I think
what William is pushing for is him into exile. They

(02:04):
certainly want him out of that house. I think it's
extremely damaging. And Charles, you know, he's busy. He's gone
through cancer treatment, he's trying to keep the and trying
to stop the public backlash against his brother.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
He must be so angry.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Now when you say exile, do you do you literally
mean out of the country.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yes, yes, what they're talking I was in Westminster yesterday.
I was talking to very well connected people and they're
saying that it is game over for Andrew. Ahead of
steam is building against him which cannot be stopped. That
was the phrase yesterday that I heard from someone who's
extremely well tapped into government and what they're thinking. And
when I say exile, they're talking about some village up

(02:47):
a mountain in Switzerland where him and Sarah Ferguson can
go ski and drink wine all day and reminisce about
the good old days when the UK taxpayer funded their life.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Because there was a little bit of talk for a
while that he would be seen somewhere like the Falklands
or something, some sort of Commonwealth arrangement. We're not going
to get him lumped on us, are we.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
No, no, relax. Relax.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
The parents of teenage children in New Zealand can relax,
I think. And they're going to send them anywhere. I
think it'd be Switzerland or there's a royal family in
Bahrain who are quite pally with Andrew. Still I know
for a fact he's been to visit them in the
last two years.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
He will go somewhere. But in England it's endgame game almost.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
This is nuclear, isn't it. And look, the thing that
we were talking about earlier this week was it needed
to be dealt with relatively quickly, otherwise the King was
going to be arriving in Rome to pray with the Pope. Sorry,
and all we're doing is talking about Andrew and that
is exactly what is happening.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, precisely. So.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Look, they move at glacial pace, the royal family, and
obviously there's Parliament and there's legislation that would have to
be raced through. Why everything has gone in a flurry
this week, a flurry of activity that hasn't resulted in
any decisiveness. Well, the titles have gone is because the
King is now in Rome. So he arrived last night

(04:07):
with Camilla and they're there it's not a state visit.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
They are there to.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
See the Pope and to pray with Leo. And today
you will see very symbolically the head of the Church
of England sitting and praying with the head of the
global Catholic Church in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, so
in the Vatican.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
So it's hugely significant.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
The monarch has not prayed with the Pope since the
sixteenth century, I believe, so half a millennia ago. And
Charles wants the headline to be you know, the other
day he went to Manchester to spend time at the
Jewish community, that synagogue that was attacked. Charles is doing
his utmost you know, pushing eighty, trying to be cancer,
trying to stay alive, trying to keep his family together,

(04:51):
and this brother of his is just destroying everything.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Lord, we've all got one. Well, none of us have
got on Andrew, have we Inda, Thank you very much appreciated.
Into Brady Correspondent. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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