Commons committee calls for auditors to look at Buckingham Palace revenues
Royal family called on to open up Collections Trust to National Audit Office
The Royal Family has come under pressure from the Commons Public Accounts
Committee over the exclusion of the Royal Collection Trust – with income of £27m
from visitors to Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle – from the remit of the
National Audit Office.
The MPs said: ‘We can see no constitutional justification for the Comptroller
and Auditor General being denied access to the Trust.
‘The Royal Collection Trust looks after a vast number of priceless works of
art on behalf of the Nation, and its commercial success impacts directly on the
amount of resources available to maintain the Occupied Royal Palaces, but the
Trust is not accountable to Parliament.’
Their conclusion was reached in a report which disclosed the Royal Household
has estimated a £32m maintenance backlog, including a failure to maintain the
Victoria and Albert mausoleum now on the English Heritage ‘buildings at risk’
register – denounced as a ‘scandal by committee chairman Edward Leigh .
He said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had failed to exert a
firm grip on the upkeep of the Royal Palaces and urged more of the income from
tourists should be passed to the Royal Household to spend on building
maintenance,