Questions remain over whether the monarch - who is said to favour Andrew - is helping him foot the bill, which includes a £2million donation to Ms Giuffre's charity, which helps victims of sexual assault and trafficking.

Meanwhile, Labour MP for Middlesborough Andy McDonald has demanded that a minister comes to the House to reveal if any taxpayer money from the Sovereign Grant - cash paid to the royals from the public - was used to pay off 38-year-old Ms Roberts.

Mr McDonald has since written to minister Steve Barclay so he can confirm if any taxpayer money was used at all to pay the out-of-court settlement and establish that 'no public funds have been or will be used in part or whole in satisfaction of the settlement'.

'That would just be a step too far,' he said. 'I can't predict what form that protest would take.

'But people would be inordinately upset if taxpayers' monies were used as a payoff for litigation, from a man who was hitherto quite content to be associated with a paedophile [Jeffrey Epstein] and child trafficker [Ghislaine Maxwell].'

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