Related Articles
Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall estate each year rakes in £1.5million a year from MMP Dartmoor despite being empty as it is leased to the Ministry of Justice
Image: PA)
The Prince of Wales receives millions in taxpayer cash from an empty prison which has now become infested with rats and other vermin.
HMP Dartmoor is leased to the Ministry of Justice for £1.5 million by the Duchy of Cornwall every year. The estate gives Prince William a private income and it is his best taxpayer-funded source of income, according to a joint investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches.
But the prison is closed and has been since July last year. It shut following high levels of toxic gas being found in prisoner accommodation and inmates had to be moved to other jails. Among the inmates being moved were sex offenders inside for long stretches.
(
Image:
PA)
The agreement in the lease means that the estate is not responsible for the prison upkeep. A “dilapidations clause” also means the taxpayer must fork out £68 million to repair the building even though it was built with taxpayer cash. There has been further wear on the building since it shut last year, along with bird infestations and bats, insects and birds taking root and taking advantage of the windows that were opened to help with ventilation.
The prison may never reopen, according to a report by an independent monitoring board. The radioactive gas radon, linked to lung cancer, had been found at the jail when the 25-year lease was signed in 2022. HMP Dartmoor’s future will be decided in the summer, when the government looks at its spending plans, a prison spokesperson told the BBC.
The cost of the lease has more than doubled since the 1980s, but a Tory source told the Times that the then-government felt it had to sign the lease or risk losing prison spaces which are extremely limited. Both the MoJ and the Ducky took legal advice when the deal was put together, the estate said.
(
Image:
SWNS)
William became the owner of the £1.3 billion Duchy of Cornwall when the Queen died and it provides him with a private income of more than £20m every year. At the same time, King Charles III inherited the £830m Duchy of Lancaster from his mother.
The two estates are exempt from a string of taxes, including capital gains tax, corporation tax and inheritance tax. A Mirror investigation with Channel 4 Dispatches revealed the commercial profits from the two estates. The Duchy of Cornwall’s commercial revenue has grown 115% since 2011 to nearly £21m and is now more than half of its revenue.
It pays no capital gains tax, which the Government has raised to at least 24%, because it says that “the vast majority of its property holdings are held for the long term as core holdings” and all capital gains from property sales are reinvested. William has said he will pay voluntary tax on his top earnings. The Duchy says: “This is not a requirement but something His Royal Highness chooses to do voluntarily. “ William did not reveal how much he has paid.
During the decade from 2010 to 2020 it made on average £3.3m a year from selling property. But during the last four years this rose to £44m – or more than £11m a year. It recently made more than £30m profit selling a warehouse in Milton Keynes it had only bought a few years previously.
Deals like this have helped the total value of the Duchy soar to nearly £1.3 billion, up 73%, or nearly twice the rate of inflation. A Duchy of Cornwall spokesperson said in November: “The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate with a commercial imperative which we achieve alongside our commitment to restoring the natural environment and generating positive social impact for our communities.”
A Prison Service spokesperson told The Mirror: “After close monitoring of the situation at HMP Dartmoor, we took the decision to temporarily close the site. We continue to take advice from specialists to explore how it can be reopened as quickly as possible.” The Mirror has also contacted Buckingham Palace for comment.
