MP wants to evict £115-a-week royals

A Labour MP today launched an outspoken attack on members of the royal family who carry out no public duties but enjoy lavish and palatial accommodation, virtually for free.

Alan Williams, a former Labour treasury minister, was referring to the case of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, who pay only £115 a week to stay in a grand five-bedroom flat in Kensington Palace. He said there was no longer any justification for royals to pay peppercorn rents while living in the royal palaces.

The veteran Labour MP for Swansea also argued that following the death of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, Clarence House and Kensington Palace should be opened up as tourist attractions, rather than lying either empty or only halfused to provide better value for the taxpayer.

His comments came as he and other members of the Commons public accounts committee prepared to investigate the rent paid by the prince and princess and other members of the royal family.

The committee will visit Kensington Palace tomorrow and talk to Sir Michael Peat, the Keeper of the Privy Purse.

About 60 royals, officials and servants live in the palace, some in grace-and-favour apartments, supported by money for the Civil List.

The Kents' flat is particularly controversial because they do not carry out any royal engagements. The couple also own a £3 million house in Gloucestershire. The cross-party committee is determinedto bring the arrangements out into the open, amid concern that the taxpayer is losing out.

Mr Williams said: "Whitehall must not be sycophantic about this. Many people see the present arrangements as an abuse of the system.

"Prince Michael carries out no public duties. He enjoys all this accommodation for no reason other than that he is a relation of the Queen - and that is not a good enough reason."

The prince pays about £6,000 a year towards the costs of maintenance of his flat under a deal agreed between the Queen and the Government in 1979. The Queen does not wish to go back on the arrangement.

Mr Williams said that several residences are now lying empty. "It is time to face the fact that the royal family is not entitled to expect lavish accommodation at the expense of the taxpayer. I don't see why we need a 'royal campus', with Clarence House, St James's Palace and Kensington Palace all so close together. They would make ideal tourist attractions."

The committee is not allowed to inspect Prince Michael's private residence but will be shown around other apartments. Others living in the palace are the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duke's 100-year-old mother Princess Alice.

Buckingham Palace said today that the taxpayer contributes £200,000 a year towards Kensington Palace and rent increases over the next few years would lead to nearly all of that sum.

? Prince Michael sold his 1981 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI for £161,650, more than double the forecast, at a Christie's car auction in London last night.