Labour peer says he cannot see a problem with the heir to throne writing to government ministers, adding that the prince has ‘a lot to offer country’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Lord Prescott has gone public for the first time about letters he received while in government from Prince Charles, defending the future monarch’s right to “write as many damn letters as he likes”.

The former deputy prime minister, 76, said he could not see a problem with Charles writing to government ministers, adding that the prince has “a lot to offer this country”. Prescott made the remarks in his Sunday Mirror column.

Last month the supreme court upheld a ruling which paved the way for the publication of the so-called black spider memos, which the Guardian has pursued under the Freedom of Information Act. The letters were written between September 2004 and March 2005 and sent by the prince to seven government departments.

In 2012, the then attorney general, Dominic Grieve, said the correspondence contained Charles’s “most deeply held personal views and beliefs”, and argued the disclosure might undermine the prince’s “position of political neutrality”, which he might not easily be able to recover when king.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lord Prescott. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

The supreme court judges, however, concluded that Grieve did not have the legal power to veto a freedom of information tribunal, which had decided the memos should be published.

Prescott, whose letters are separate to the 27 due to be released, said that while he was “not a raving loyalist”, he had “a lot of time for Charles” who is to be the next king and would be “wrong to ignore”.

The letters “show he has nothing to hide and he shouldn’t be worried about publication”, he added.

Prescott revealed that as deputy prime minister responsible for transport and the environment, he regularly received letters from the prince and “didn’t mind receiving them”.

The first letter the Labour peer revealed was a typed invitation to a meeting of Regional Development Agency leaders in 1999 in which Charles said it would be “splendid” to see Prescott.



The second in 2003 expressed sadness at the death of Prescott’s mother.

Prescott said that while he listens to the views of everyone who contacts him on political matters, he makes his own decisions.



“Charles has an awful lot to offer this country,” he wrote in his column. “And if he wants to serve his subjects by helping young people into work, combating climate change and building sustainable communities, he can write as many damn letters as he likes.”

The prince has long been accused of bombarding ministers with memos attacking government policy. His letters are named after his distinctive spidery handwriting.



Whitehall has attempted to block the release of the memos for a decade, and both Clarence House and the prime minister expressed disappointment after the court ruling.