Republic has welcomed reports that an influential Commons committee is considering a wide ranging review of royal finances. Republic has been pushing for greater scrutiny of royal costs - estimated by the group to be over £200m a year - and has recently written to the Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge calling for an investigation into Prince Charles's tax avoidance. According to a report in today's Independent, the Committee is now expected to launch an inquiry into royal finances later this year. Republic's chief executive Graham Smith said today: "The way the royal household spends public money is nothing short of a disgrace, a thorough and detailed review is long overdue." "When Prince Charles spends tens of thousands of pounds of public money on personal holidays without a whisper of outrage from our politicians there is clearly something wrong." "It is crucial that any such investigation abandons all sense of deference for the royals and has a good hard look at how the palace is wasting taxpayers' money." "The issue of tax must also be thoroughly investigated - it is not acceptable that the Queen and her eldest son are exempt from the same tax regimes as the rest of us."