William Reportedly Helped Harry And Meghan Create Their Own Household
Harry and Meghan recently announced their plans to start their own royal household separate from William and Kate at Kensington Palace.
The change means they will have a separate staff with offices based at Buckingham Palace. The staff will be part of the Buckingham Palace communications team and will report to the Queen’s communications secretary.
Although William won’t be working with the same staff as his brother anymore, he still advocated for the Sussexes to get a proper team as they get ready to start their own household.
Royal correspondents Omid Scobie and Emily Andrews discussed about the split in the latest episode of their podcast On Heir.
“A lot of their [the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s] team will be shared amongst the Duke of York, and Prince Edward, and Princess Anne. The same communications staff that are working across this sort of general office there [at Buckingham Palace] will also be at their disposal, too. They won’t be having their own kind of exclusive team just for themselves,” said Scobie.
“A lot of their [the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s] team will be shared amongst the Duke of York, and Prince Edward, and Princess Anne,” Scobie says in the episode.
“The same communications staff that are working across this sort of general office there [at Buckingham Palace] will also be at their disposal, too. They won’t be having their own kind of exclusive team just for themselves.
“From what I understand, their budget for the team wasn’t particularly big, and it was actually Prince William who had to step in and fight to get Harry a little bit more money to spend on building a team because he understands what this means to Harry and how much he wants to achieve and also how important Harry and Meghan are for the image, the brand and the future of the royal family.”
Emily said that “the office at Buckingham Palace will be funded in three parts: it’s being funded privately by the Prince of Wales from the Duchy of Cornwall and the Queen from the Duchy of Lancaster, their private incomes, and then their communications team will be paid for by the sovereign grant, which is the taxpayer money that’s given to the Queen to pay for members of the royal family.”
Emily also added, “We understand Charles and the Queen did not want the Sussexes to have their own independent household, and indeed, how could they have their own independent household, because the money has to come from somewhere.”
Scobie said that it was made clear to him and other royal correspondents that Harry “is not a direct heir to the throne, and only a direct heir to the throne can have their own household”. He is sixth in line for the throne and will continue to get pushed behind William’s children and future grandchildren in the line of succession.
The Sussex household won’t be officially set up until sometime this spring, meanwhile Kensington Palace will continue to support them. In the meantime, they have already announced Sara Latham as their head of communications.
Meanwhile, Jason Knauf, who’s been a communications secretary to the royal couples for a few years, has been appointed as senior advisor to William and Kate. Christian Jones, known as the Deputy Communications Secretary to the royal couples, will be communications secretary to the Cambridges.