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I think there is a massive change of tide amongst MPs and amongst members of the public. It's all very well for the palace to say we are committed to transparency, but I think there is a lot that remains particularly murky and opaque about the finances. Despite not being working royals, Andrew Mountbatton Windsor's daughters have been living in crown properties rentree. And this is why they're best known for being the daughters of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, Princess Eujeni and Princess Beatatrice. And it isn't just unfortunate haircuts or outlandish wedding hats. They're back in the news thanks to a National Audit Office report into their palatial accommodation and who exactly pays for it. Today though,
we're going to try and look beyond those headlines because despite the huge interest in them, technically they're not working royals. And many of the controversies that they've been dragged into have been entirely the fault of their parents. So, who are Eujenei and Beatatrice? What are they in the context of the House of Windsor? And what do they tell us about the modern monarchy? Our royal correspondent is Laura Bunduk. Laura, so much that is fascinating about these two women. But let's start with that National Audit Office report.
What have we actually discovered about their sleeping arrangements? We've discovered a lot actually. And what I mean what strikes me is that how is it two decades since the National Audit Office were asked to look into royal finances, this immensely complex and some would say slightly murky, opaque world. Anyway, in terms of the princesses, what we have learned is that the two of them since 2008 have been able to live rentfree in royal palaces. Now, they used to share a pad in St. James's Palace. Um, then usually moved to Kensington Palace in 2018 where she lives in Ivy Cottage or does when she's not in her Portuguese villa. Um, Beatatrice has remained having access to
that apartment in St. James' palace. Now, we know from this document that it is the king who is picking up the bill for their rent. He is personally paying for that, honoring or continuing an arrangement that started with the princess's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. She decided she would pay for it. Now, there's a weird thing with the royal house royal household because these palaces lie within, you know, tight security zones, security cordons. There's a deal whereby you can't get any old Tonic and Harry renting out an apartment there because of the vetting process. So the rent gets adjusted usually to 60% of the going market value. But what's wrong with that? I mean, rich
uncles have paid for their niec's accommodation since time in memorial. I suppose it relates to the fact it's a cut price rent that they're getting, but also where the money that Charles is spending comes from. There's no rule that has been broken here, but it does great, doesn't it? Slightly. The bigger question here, I think, is um why are they getting this deal? Okay, they both have jobs. They both got pretty wealthy husbands. They have cousins who are also nieces and nephews of the king who don't get this. They're not working royals. There's no public role for them in terms of our the taxpayer funding of being an official working royal. So, how come they're getting this privilege?
See, this is what fascinates me about this entire story because, as you say, they are princesses. They have the HR title. They are in the line of succession, but they are not what is known in inverted commas as working royals. How does that work? Yeah, it's a weird one, isn't it? So I mean a working royal is basically uh a member a senior member of the royal family whose job is to carry out work on behalf of the royal family on behalf of the country. So you know you can think of the obvious ones the king the queen William and Kate working royals. Yeah and that comes with you know access to the funds that are paid by the state and security provided by the state presumably.
Yes. Exactly that. So um it comes from the sovereign grant. Basically, the sovereign grant pays for the work that they do. Um, and there are some random ones in there as well you might not know. It's not a big pool, the working royals. So, William, Kate, King, Queen, you've got Edward and Sophie, Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. Know them. You've got Princess Anne. No. And then you've got the Duke and Duchess of Glouester. You might recognize them, but they are working royals. You're shaking your head. You've got the Duke of Kent. No. And you have Princess Alexandra as well. They're the ones that get, you know, that we pay for because they carry out official duties. Um, now it's weird with the non-working royals because
there are some big faces and big names there. And I think these princesses, Beatric and Eugene are very well known, aren't they? They're high profile. They are HR. They've got all the titles. They've got the style, but they don't have the royal role. So they do occupy this rather curious position kind of in some ways kind of half in some ways kind of half out professionally though. I mean they have plowed their own furrow. I mean let's start with Beatric. I mean what's she like? What does she actually do? She has a job. She works um for a software company. She went to university. Um I mean she was brought up in you know in grandeur though. Let's let's you know she had all the trappings of a royal lifestyle. parents who
famously divorced and famously was supposed to be happily divorced. Um, she's a popular I would have said up until anything relating to her father, the girls were really popular. We know they were very close to their grandmother. But yes, Beatric is an interesting one because she is also a counselor of state. What's that? So, okay. So, the king has people, the monarch will always have people who can deputize for them. She automatically became one when the queen died because sort of bumps she bumped up the list because the king was no longer one because he was now the monarch. Okay. So, when it comes to Beatric, we have a professional life. We still have an kind of an activeish sort of role within the royal family that you've just been describing. Uh what
about Eujenei? What does she do dayto-day? I mean, again, she has had to kind of play her own furrow, hasn't she? Yeah. Well, she's pregnant at the moment, so she will be becoming a mother for the third time. She did like her sister, she went to university. She did a degree in history of art in Newcastle. She has a job in an art gallery. She has a husband whose job has taken them to Portugal. So they live on the Portuguese coast in a villa. So she has charitable interests as well as her career on the side. She's also got two young sons as well. So she's she's busy. But in terms of her royal life, then she's a member of the royal family, but she's not a working royal.
Personality wise, what are they like? I mean, do they complement or contrast? you don't ever hear anything bad about them. They're meant to be really good fun. They're meant to be, you know, very loyal to each other, very loyal to their parents. And certainly, I think with Eugene, we know she's very close to Prince Harry. She's very close to her cousin. Um, and yeah, you don't get a bad press, but obviously by association that has been changing. Well, this is where we were going to go next because of course any discussion of Beatrice and Eujenei cannot avoid discussion of their parents Andrew Mount and Windsor and Sarah Ferguson. I mean they did divorce when they were
pretty young but they always gave the impression that family came first that actually the family unit remained pretty strong. Yeah. And I think everyone would agree on one thing when it comes to the Yorks. I mean dysfunction weird relationships to one side. They were a tight family unit and regardless of what Fergie and Andrew were getting up to and the battle within the House of York and what was going on there, they were a tight-knit family. You would now look at William and Kate and how they're bringing up their kids and things. It's more aligned perhaps to that. But there were bits in
their lives where you can see that, you know, the associations their parents had with questionable people did bring their daughters, you know, closer to those things. I'm thinking of Beatric's 18th birthday party, which was a mass ball at Windsor Castle in 2006. It wasn't a small guest list. There were hundreds there, but there also were Jeffrey Epstein, Glay Maxwell, and Harvey Weinstein. They were all invited. Wasn't there another birthday party that got brought up in that infamous News night interview with Andrew and you know the Pizza Express in walking and that was that was Beatric's birthday I think again it was she was attending a birthday
party so in the news interview and there were many bizarre moments in that interview weren't there this was definitely one of them where Andrew said he remembers specifically the date that he was alleged to have met Virginia Jafrey Um, he couldn't possibly have been there because he remembers he had to drop Beatatrice off at a party at Pizza Express in Woking. This is the Virginia Jafrey that the royal household paid doubledigit millions to settle a civil case elsewhere, wasn't it? And Andrew has and continues to always strongly denied any allegations made by his accuser. But yes, she is and was
was his accuser. So Andrew says he remembers picking Beatric up from a Pizza Express party. For me and you, for many people, picking your kids up from a bouncy play center or something, you know, we do it all the time. Frankie, he remembers it because it was an unusual thing to for him to do, he said. Um, and he remembers that they used to share and split child care duties so much so that Fergie was away, so he was at home with the kids. Um, and that formed, you know, a big part of his answer as to why he didn't think and claims he hadn't met Virginia Defrain. It's it seems to me that there are two things happening in parallel here. On the one hand, the reputational damage that Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's
continued relationship with Epstein would have on their children just in and of itself, noting, as you just have, that Andrew denies all wrongdoing. But there are also the times like with that News Night interview and other occasions where both parents seem to draw them into the controversy to actively make them part of it. Yeah. And I think you also have to look at how old the girls were when things were going on. And if you look back to the News Night interview, Sam Mlass, you know, they made, you know, the woman who sort of set up the interview, who's written the book, there's been the show made as well. um has spoken about Beatatric's involvement in that interview, describing her as the rain maker, that she was on the
lookout for Andrew as they were sort of negotiating how it might play out. She was meant to have been devastated as well after the interview aired, but she was involved in some way and Sam remembers it that she turned up at one of the meetings at Buckingham Palace when they were sorting out how would it be, how will we do this interview, what will it be like? um from a point of concern for her father to make sure it was okay. But I think as a young woman, she would have known there was, you know, reputational risk at stake here. Um but she obviously was aware of the interview. Um I'm not saying she totally supported and wanted to happen, but she was very much there
when the negotiations were taking place. She was also there along with her sister when Sarah Ferguson took a trip to the United States to meet Jeffrey Epstein. When was that? That was shortly after he was released from 5 days after Epstein was released from prison. They weren't kids at that point. No, they were 20 and 19. It was the summer of 2009. And the emails show a number of sort of conversations backwards and forwards, but basically Sarah Ferguson took her daughters for a lunch with Jeffrey Epstein. And they were 20 and they were 19, you know, the same age as maybe older than some of Epstein's accusers, some of Epstein's victims. And that's that's difficult. Are Beatrice and Eujenei are they a force for good within this modernizing kind of
21st century version of the House of Windsor with more changes coming down the line when Charles hands over to William. If and when William takes over from the king, he will want to do things his way and he will have to decide at that point whenever that point comes. Is there a role for the two sisters, his two cousins in the monarchy that he wants to lead and he wants to run? His children could well be a lot older by them. Um, it's a big question, isn't it? I think a lot had been said up until, you know, the whole Epstein scandal as to whether there should be a role for them because they were seen as a force for good now. But I think by association their reputation has been tarnished
and it's hard to see how on earth they can there can be a role for them in the in the future especially in Williams in Williams future. But if there isn't a role for them, why on earth should they enjoy the privileges that come with the HR title? Are we perhaps making a problem for ourselves in referring to working and non-working royals when actually perhaps the distinction should be between public and private figures because they're certainly not private figures. No. No, they're not. It's it's a hard one, isn't it? And I think it is important to look at what their cousins do to see how it can be accepted. So if you look at Zara Tindle for example, Peter Phillips, they both have pretty lucrative careers,
especially Zara with sponsorship deals and the like deals that okay, she was within her own right a very accomplished equestrian is still but would she have got those deals without the royal association? That's always going to be the issue, isn't it? But does but doesn't our discussion raise questions about the rest of them as well? We've mentioned Princess Alexandra already. She paid hundreds of thousands, as I understand it, hundreds of thousands of pounds for a lease back in the '90s in not in perpetuity, but well beyond her lifespan, well beyond, you know, ours combined on a massive place in the middle of Richmond Park, and I haven't a clue who she is. Why should these arrangements continue when
actually you look at what these royals are doing, they're not contributing anything to public life? Doesn't this just bring us back to the same question we asked at the beginning? Why on earth should these rich individuals be getting handouts? I think that is the big issue and I think it is don't don't think just because we've had this report nothing is going to happen because I think what we've seen in the last you know year is something starting to happen. The public accounts committee wanted to get their hands on Andrew's lease of Royal Lodge. They got that. They then wanted the National Audit Office to have another look and find out exactly what they could about the deal with the
properties. That committee is now going to wait for the crown estate annual accounts which will be out end of June maybe beginning of July say and then they're going to start their investigation because I think there is a massive change of tide amongst MPs and amongst members of the public that they want it's all very well for the palace to say we are committed to transparency but I think there is a lot that remains means particularly murky and opaque about the finances and the and it's not just me saying that it's MPs now and so if you've got the public accounts committee having a thorough look at this I think things could easily change and what we're discussing now will be you
know the basis the national audit office it's not their role is it to say it's value for money it's it's working well that's not what they do they're auditors but The public accounts committee can dig further. They can make recommendations. They can ask questions of senior people. And I think we can expect senior palace staff to be called to give evidence and discuss all this. Not only that, what the public accounts committee could also do is then ask auditors to let's look at value for money and that is when the answer to that question I think will get a bit closer. But do you think given the negative press we are going to see
Eujenei and Beatrice stepping back from public life? One thing is I've always found interesting is how the palace goes out of its way to distance them from what's going on with their parents. So the invitations to Christmas at Sandringum for example where it's made very clear they're not working roles but they're members of this family. So they're not just HR. They are a niece. And I think that's what the palace wants to do. Does the public accept them being splashed at fancy parties in London? Less so. Much less so now, I would say. And that's your lot for today. Do remember if you like what you've been watching, you can subscribe to the podcast. Should be just a click away on
your podcast app. And don't forget to get in touch with your thoughts and your ideas for future episodes. The email address ys sky.uk. We're back again soon.
