The British parliament is to investigate Prince Charles's controversial role in helping to shape government legislation in a move likely to increase pressure on Whitehall to reduce the secrecy around alleged royal lobbying.
MPs will examine the heir to the throne's little-known royal veto over any new laws that affect his private interests next month. The move follows a Guardian investigation in 2011 into the secretive constitutional loophole that revealed how ministers have been forced to seek permission from the prince to pass at least a dozen government bills.
The House of Commons political and constitutional reform committee, chaired by the Labour MP Graham Allen, will ask whether there is a risk that the requirement of royal consent, which is also granted by the Queen depending on the nature of the law being passed, "could be seen as politicising the monarchy".
It has emerged that Charles has held 36 meetings with ministers since the government took power in May 2010. He has met the prime minister, David Cameron, seven times, four different ministers in the Department for Communities and Local Government and held six meetings with ministers in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which oversee areas in which the prince campaigns on planning and the environment respectively. Neither Whitehall nor Clarence House will elaborate on what was discussed in the private meetings.