PRINCE Andrew and other royals should not have police bodyguards if there are no threats against them, a former Government Minister has said.
Former Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, who is an ex-Home Office minister told GB News: “The cost of policing the royal family as it were is about £200 million a year – it is an enormous cost which is on top of the £85 million cost for the civil list each year.
“The issue is what is the appropriate level of security? If there is a particular threat to Andrew, which is real and significant, then it’s right there, they should have a bodyguard, so it should be based on risk.
“If there is a risk to a particular person with his role or not, then there should be some entitlement to security and protection, but if there’s not then why are we protecting people?
He was commenting in an interview during Breakfast with Mark Longhurst and Ellie Costello on GB News.
Mr Baker said: “The general rule is that working royals are protected and non-working Royals are not protected, and Andrew is a non-working royal.”
Asked if he needed protection from members of the public who dislike him, he said: “It’s possible. We don’t know, I mean, there may be security information I don’t have which would justify this.
“What I would say is there are plenty of people that don’t regard Andrew very highly and may be not very amenable to him.”
On Prince Harry insisting on paying for police protection when he is in the UK, he said: “there’s some sympathy I think I’ve got with him that if he pays for it, then he should be covered.
“What I find strange about Harry and Megan’s attitude is that they seem to believe that the more at risk in the UK is in the US.
“There’s guns everywhere in the US, over here I would have thought he’d be rather safer.”
