Minister refuses to admit if taxpayers are funding Duke of York's security
Security minister Damian Hinds has refused to confirm whether taxpayers would continue to fund the Duke of York's security arrangements.
When pressed by LBC's Nick Ferrari, Mr Hinds said: "Our security forces, the police and others, do what they judge is necessary to protect our country, to protect people in it."
He said it was a "long-standing - and I think correct - principle that we don't talk about who and how in particular".
The conversation comes after the Queen stripped Andrew of his honorary military roles and he gave up his use of HRH style in a dramatic fallout from the civil sex case.
Andrew, who was born an HRH, will not use it in any official capacity, a royal source said and the duke has also been stripped of his remaining royal patronages.
The decision represents the duke's complete removal from official royal life, and an attempt to distance the monarchy from Andrew, who was once second in line to the throne as the spare to the heir, in the year of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
When pushed on who was paying for the duke's security, Mr Hinds said: "I know this is going to come across to you possibly, and possibly to some listeners, like me obfuscating and avoiding the question, and I suppose maybe even in some ways it is avoiding the question, but only because it is right to say that the police and our wider security forces do what is right and proportionate to protect the people of this country.
"And we don't ... publicise exactly what that covers."