Charles’s charities urged to publish details of donations

ROYAL charities should publish the details of all donors and donations in recognition of their unique position, it is claimed today.

The regulation of charities such as the Royal Foundation, the Prince’s Trust and the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund (PWCF) falls under the auspices of the Charity Commission, whose guidelines allow donations to be made in cash and for donors to be anonymous.

However, experts warn that failure to declare such transactions would always leave members of the Royal family susceptible to claims of selling access.

The warning comes after the Prince of Wales was criticised for accepting a suitcase of cash from a Qatari sheikh. The Charity Commission is reviewing three separate cash payments, totalling £2.5 million, donated to the PWCF by a former prime minister of the Gulf state.

“That’s the suspicion here,” Craig Prescott, an expert in constitutional law at Bangor University, said.

“It’s about what they are offering in return ... It might be advisable for royal charities to go above and beyond current regulations and include in their accounts and on their websites the specific detail about where their money comes from.”

The PWCF has submitted a serious incident report about the transactions, said to have been made in €500 notes, which are no longer issued in the eurozone due to their association with money-laundering.

The heir to the throne is alleged to have personally accepted the donations between 2011 and 2015 from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013.

He has insisted that the money was immediately transferred to the charity but the revelation raised questions about why the donation was made in cash and given directly to the Prince.

Separately, the Metropolitan Police is investigating allegations of cash for honours. Michael Fawcett, a close confidant of the Prince, is alleged to have attempted to secure a CBE for the Saudi billionaire Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, who gave more than £1.5million to the Prince’s Foundation charity.

Dame Margaret Hodge, a former chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant ... Any smell of wrongdoing damages the Royal family and undermines the integrity of both the giving and the organisations supported ... Charles should be transparent.”

Dr Prescott added: “Prince Charles’s charities are particularly closely connected with him because he’s moved from being a mere ribbon cutter to having a much more active role in certain charitable ventures.

“It’s a good thing for the monarchy but with that comes some scrutiny as it is a public institution.”