‘Air miles Andy’ and £250,000 bill for security
Telegraph investigation shows cost of police cover as Duke flew around world on his business pursuits
TAXPAYERS paid more than a quarter of a million pounds for the Duke of York’s security detail to accompany him around the world as he promoted his Pitch@Palace business venture, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. According to Court Circular listings, the Duke made 30 foreign trips to carry out engagements on behalf of the company since he founded it 2014.
The revelations are likely to raise questions about how much taxpayers have spent on trips the Duke made for business purposes and why so many were necessary. Prince Andrew reluctantly stepped down from the business on Friday, following intense pressure in the wake of a disastrous Newsnight interview in which he tried to draw a line under the controversy surrounding his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
Pitch@Palace will now be known simply as “Pitch”, although it is understood the Prince will continue involvement in what palace officials described as a “private portfolio of events”.
A former head of the Metropolitan Police’s elite Royal Protection Group (SO14) said the Duke would have been accompanied on every Pitch@Palace trip by up to five armed protection officers, each of whom would be of inspector or chief inspector rank and paid around £105,000 a year.
This would include a Royal Protection allowance of £15,000 a year for passing the rigorous selection process, meaning the cost to the taxpayer of protecting the Duke on foreign trips would amount to £1,500 a day for five Royal Protection Officers, totalling at least £175,000 for the 115 days spent on Pitch@Palace duties since 2014.
That would not include the cost of flights and accommodation for each of the Royal Protection Officers – meaning the total security cost could be much greater.
The cost of flights alone for his protection detail on the trips could have cost as much as £80,000 over that period. The cost of the Prince’s protection is met by Scotland Yard with a contribution from the Home Office.
Dai Davies, former head of the Royal Protection Group, said: “It’s a very expensive business protecting a member of the Royal family abroad.”
He added: “In all, the cost of protecting Andrew over the course of his lifetime will stretch into millions.”
Nigel Mills, a long-standing member of the House of Commons public ac
counts committee, said the Pitch scheme should be the subject of a parliamentary investigation.
He said: “It’s very unusual for a royal initiative to be set up in this way, as a company. This is concerning. The Royal family are there to do good work for the country, not to benefit themselves in any way.”
The Duke attended Pitch@Palace lunches and other events in 17 countries including Hungary, China and Mexico, and even Bahrain, for which he was previously criticised for visiting because of its “oppressive regime”.
This newspaper’s investigation also found that some of the trips where Prince Andrew – known as “Air Miles Andy” – conducted work for his company were paid for by the taxpayer because he was also carrying out “official” work for the Government.
The palace insists that flights and accommodation related to Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace work were paid for privately, but royal accounts reveal a number of overseas company events attended by the Duke over the past four years coincided with taxpayer-funded “official” trips.
The most expensive “official” trip was to Saudi Arabia in November 2014, when taxpayers contributed more than £43,000. Accounts state the trip was on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – but it also included a “Pitch on Tour” event described in a Court Circular as a “lunch” at the fivestar Bay La Sun Hotel.
A trip to Singapore in June 2017 cost more than £35,000. Accounts state that was for a Commonwealth Science Conference but a Court Circular adds that the Duke “Founder, Pitch@Palace” also held a “Lunch for entrepreneurs”.
In a statement, Buckingham Palace said: “Where the central focus of an overseas visit was in relation to Pitch@ Palace, the substantive costs would be met privately.”