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Britain’s Prince Charles is facing a Westminster campaign that would strip him and his estate of special privileges, including tax exemptions and the power of veto.
A Labour peer, Lord Berkeley, is to propose a bill to the House of Lords that would remove the special privileges of the prince and his £800-million estate, which provides the monarch with an annual private income of £19 million.
According to Berkeley, the prince’s estate currently pays tax voluntarily, gets free advice from government lawyers and has exemptions from legislation that applies to other private sector bodies.
“It is time for parliament to consider the increasingly urgent matter of the Prince of Wales’s status and to modernize this medieval situation,” said Berkeley.
The bill would take away Prince Charles’ power of veto over new legislation, which could affect his private interests. Constitutional lawyers have described the veto power as a royal “nuclear deterrent” over public policy.