Harry and Meghan should receive taxpayer-funded security - ex-home secretary
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex should be given ‘middle ground’ security that is ‘reassessed’ in two years’ time, according to a former Labour home secretary.
In bombshell news last week, Harry and Meghan announced they would relocate from California back to the UK, six years after leaving Britain to raise their young children — Archie and Lilibet — in the US.
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With their arrival expected within the next few weeks, a row has broken out over how much publicly funded security the pair should receive. The Home Office has stayed tight-lipped on the level of protection the King’s son and his family will have, but it’s thought a review by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec) has been completed.
It could cost the taxpayer up to £5 million per year to keep the family safe, but a former New Labour home secretary said a ‘middle ground’ should be found.
Lord David Blunkett, who led the Home Office from 2001 to 2004, told The Times on Sunday: “There are three areas of security... the fully blown, blacked-out back-up car with two or three close protection – one in the passenger car and the others in the back-up – on a 24-hour basis.
“There's then the middle ground... where you have one or two officers who travel with the principal, as they call it. The third is they get a driver with security training.
"The middle of that is a perfectly reasonable thing to offer for the time being, and then it could be reassessed in a couple of years.”
Another Labour grandee, Dame Emily Thornberry, said the Sussexes ‘deserve to be secure’ and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has also called for a ‘common sense’ solution over the publicly-funded protection question.
Previously, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the issue was ‘a private matter’.
Questions have been raised over the Sussexes’ finances as decisions about whether taxpayers will foot the bill for their security remain unanswered.
After his level of protection changed when he stepped down as a working royal in 2020, the duke has faced a protracted legal battle with the Home Office over security for him and his family while they are in the UK, and their arrangements may change when they become permanent residents again.
Individual decisions on protective security for key public figures, including members of the royal family, are made by Ravec – which includes the Home Office, Metropolitan Police and Royal Household – which advises an independent chairperson.
Harry and Meghan will live in a non-royal residence outside of London when they move back to the UK and have already enrolled Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet in British schools.
Their move comes after the duke and duchess took their children to see their grandfather the King for the first time in four years at his Highgrove home in July.
The couple are not thought to have raised the prospect of a return to the UK at that meeting.