Buckingham Palace appeared to deny that the Queen lobbied the Government to change a law in order to conceal her private wealth from the public.
A series of Government memos unearthed in the National Archives show how the Queen's private lawyer reportedly put pressure on ministers to alter legislation to prevent her shareholdings from being disclosed, according to The Guardian.
Following the Queen’s intervention, Tory ministers inserted a clause into the law granting Government the power to exempt companies used by “heads of state” from new transparency measures.
According to reports, lawyers acting for Her Majesty used the system of Queen’s consent - where the monarch is consulted on a law that could affect either the royal prerogative or private interests before it is approved by parliament - to lobby for changes.
The documents unearthed in the National Archives reveal that in November 1973 the Queen feared that a proposed bill to bring transparency to company shareholdings could enable the public to scrutinise her finances.
According to the paper, her private lawyer Matthew Farrer visited civil servants at the then Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the proposed transparency measures in the companies bill.
He reportedly claimed that the Queen was concerned that the law would reveal her private investments.
The following month the Heath government proposed to insert a new clause into the bill granting the government the power to exempt certain companies from the requirement to declare the identities of their shareholders.
The measures survived a change of Government and became law in 1976 under the Labour government led by Harold Wilson.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Queen said: “Queen’s consent is a parliamentary process, with the role of sovereign purely formal. Consent is always granted by the monarch where requested by the government.
“Whether Queen’s consent is required is decided by parliament, independently from the royal household, in matters that would affect crown interests, including personal property and personal interests of the monarch.
“If consent is required, draft legislation is, by convention, put to the sovereign to grant solely on the advice of ministers and as a matter of public record.”
