Sovereign Grant Bill

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I should make it clear that it is an established principle that the income from that property, which is held in trust, is for the private purposes of the royal family.

In response to the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), I point out that there are of course some areas of royal financing—I will come on to say something about royal protection—where it is very difficult to be public about some of the sums of money involved. The Bill—I hope that we will soon get into the meat of it—is a mechanism for helping to continue the current level of spending. As I say, it is perfectly within the rights of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, if they want to, to look at payments from the Ministry of Defence, but that has to be a matter for them.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

As the most senior member of the Public Accounts Committee in the Chamber—because I am the only one here—I think that I speak for everybody on that Committee when I say that we welcome the additional transparency and very much look forward to bringing the royal household before it to answer the questions that have rightly been raised across the Chamber.

[Mr Osborne]

I thank my hon. Friend. When the Chair of the PAC, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), spoke in the debate two weeks ago, she was very generous in her tribute and made it pretty clear that the PAC would be getting to work on its job. I served on the PAC, as its most junior member, with the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, and I remember us making an interesting visit to Kensington palace to investigate royal finances. For some years, therefore, the PAC has been establishing a reputation for examining the books in this area.