Prince Charles paid a 'substantial sum' to Harry and Meghan despite Harry claims he was 'cut off'

ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship reports on the latest money developments between Prince Harry and his dad

Prince Charles’ office has insisted he paid a “substantial sum” to his son Prince Harry to help him with his move to America.

The Duke of Sussex had claimed that he was “literally cut off financially” by his family when the financial help stopped last summer.

Clarence House’s accounts for 2020-21 show that Prince Charles’ private income – from the Duchy of Cornwall estate – paid £4.5 million towards the running of the households of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

It is lower than the £5.6 million in the same column for the previous year.

The sum also includes “capital” projects and “other expenditure” but Clarence House does not give a more detailed breakdown.

But a senior spokesperson at Clarence House said of Prince Harry: “As we'll all remember in January 2020 when the Duke and Duchess [of Sussex] announced that they were going to move away from the working royal family, the duke said that they would work towards becoming financially independent.”

Prince Charles, said the spokesperson, had “allocated a substantial sum to support them with this transition and that the funding “ceased in the summer of last year”.

Among the accusations made by Harry and Meghan when they gave their explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey in March, Harry accused his family of ‘cutting him off’ financially.

Asked by ITV News about the dramatically different descriptions of the financial arrangements, the spokesperson said: "I wouldn't acknowledge that they are dramatically different. All I can tell you are the facts," and he pointed to the couple’s current “financially independent" situation.

He did acknowledge the couple's departure as working Royals as "a matter of enormous sadness to the family" but insisted Prince Charles “wanted to help make this work”.

"I betray no confidence when I say they've been very successful in becoming financially independent," the spokesperson added.

Listen to the ITV News Royal Rota podcast:

A spokesperson for the Sussexes insisted there was no difference in timeline, and that Harry was actually referring to the first quarter of the fiscal reporting period in the UK, which runs from April to July.

"You are conflating two different timelines and it's inaccurate to suggest that there's a contradiction," Harry and Meghan's spokesperson said.

"The duke's comments during the Oprah interview were in reference to the first quarter of the fiscal reporting period in the UK, which starts annually in April.

"This is the same date that the 'transitional year' of the Sandringham agreement began and is aligned with the timeline that Clarence House referenced."

In his Oprah interview, Harry said his family cut him off financially "in the first quarter of 2020".