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MPs have moved to lodge a parliamentary motion to strip Prince Andrew of his dukedom, in a rarely permitted move in the Commons.
The government is facing mounting pressure over the prince’s residence in the 30-room Royal Lodge in Windsor, where it was revealed that he has not paid rent for more than two decades.
The UK business secretary, Peter Kyle, said it was “a matter for the palace” whether Andrew was permitted to remain there after the fresh allegations made against him about his relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Times reported that the lease, released under freedom of information laws, showed that Andrew paid £1m for the lease and at least £7.5m for refurbishments, but has paid only “one peppercorn (if demanded)” in rent each year since 2003 and he is entitled to live there until 2078.
The lease suggests that the crown estate would owe Prince Andrew about £558,000 if he gave up the lease.
The pressure comes amid fresh allegations made about the prince in the posthumous memoir by Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre, who said she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions. She also said the prince’s team tried to “hire internet trolls” to “hassle” her online.
Her ghostwriter, Amy Wallace, said she “would view it as a victory that Andrew was forced, by whatever means, to voluntarily give them [the titles] up” calling it a “symbolic gesture”.
She told the BBC’s Newsnight: “Virginia wanted all the men who she had been trafficked to, against her will, to be held to account, and this is just one of the men.”
There are few avenues for MPs to act to formally remove the titles, which would require an act of parliament, which the government does not intend to initiate unless requested by the palace. On Tuesday, the SNP lodged an early-day motion (EDM) to formally remove Prince Andrew’s title as Duke of York, which he has said he will no longer use.
MPs are not permitted to criticise royals during parliamentary debates, but EDMs that usually carry very little parliamentary weight are one of the only ways that the conduct of a royal can be raised.
The SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, said: “If the Westminster parties remain stubbornly slow in removing Prince Andrew’s titles – the SNP will do all we can to force them to act.
“Prince Andrew’s titles can only be removed by an act of parliament – therefore this SNP motion is a way to pile pressure on the UK Labour government to bring forward that legislation immediately.
“The only real question is what Keir Starmer’s government is waiting for. The public knows this is the right thing to do, and even more importantly the victims at the heart of the Epstein scandal know that it’s the right thing to do. It needs to be done without any further excuses and any further delay.”
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EDMs rarely have any effect apart from generating publicity for a cause, but if a significant number of cross-party names were to sign the SNP motion it would act as a method for piling pressure on the government.
Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, has previously said she hoped to gain support for a bill to give the king or a parliamentary committee the power to formally remove Andrew’s titles.
“Every time this comes up, it clearly must be really traumatising for the victims and survivors, so it’s really important that this matter is dealt with once and for all,” Maskell said. “There are mechanisms which need to be put in place in order to remove a title.”
Maskell originally proposed the removal of titles bill in 2022, akin to similar legislation enacted in 1917 to remove the titles of peers and princes who fought against the British in the first world war.
