Prince Harry is expected to travel to London later this month for events tied to the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham, but his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two young children may stay behind in Montecito, California. The reason, Page Six reported, comes down to unresolved security arrangements and a Risk Management Board assessment that was scheduled for March and never happened.
A source familiar with the situation told the outlet the stalled review is the likely driver behind the family staying home.
"The reason for the decision is likely to be down to concerns from the Duke's security team and the lack of up-to-date Risk Management Board. The RMB was supposed to have taken place in March but was inexplicably parked."
That same source said the assessment "would have provided a more comprehensive understanding of the threats and risks faced by the Duke and his family." Without it, Harry's private security team apparently cannot guarantee adequate protection for Markle, 44, and the couple's children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5.
The children have not set foot in England since 2022. If the current plan holds, that streak will continue, not because the family doesn't want to visit, but because the bureaucratic machinery responsible for evaluating their safety ground to a halt months ago with no public explanation.
The roots of this problem stretch back to 2020, when Harry and Markle stepped away from senior royal duties and relocated to the United States. That decision cost them their taxpayer-funded UK police protection. Harry's private security detail, which typically consists of one or two team members, does not have jurisdiction outside the United States, leaving the family exposed whenever they cross British borders.
Harry fought the arrangement in court. His legal team argued he "inherited a security risk at birth, for life" and that his profile as a member of the Royal Family had not changed even if his role within the institution had. He offered to pay for police protection himself, filing a High Court claim against the Home Office after his requests to personally fund that coverage were dismissed.
He lost. The High Court ruled the Home Office's decision was neither irrational nor procedurally unfair. Harry appealed. His attorney, Shaheed Fatima, argued he had been "singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment." The government's lawyer, James Eadie, countered that the appeal "involves a continued failure to see the wood for the trees."
In May 2025, the Court of Appeal ruled unanimously against Harry, finding the security committee had not treated him unfairly by reviewing his protection on a case-by-case basis. He now faces roughly £1 million in legal costs, according to National Review's reporting on the ruling.
The legal defeats have not resolved the underlying problem. They have sharpened it. Harry no longer has an automatic right to police protection in the UK. The government reviews his security needs visit by visit. And the Risk Management Board, the body that was supposed to provide a thorough threat assessment, has been sitting idle since its March session was shelved.
This is not the first time a security denial has disrupted the family's plans at the last moment. BBC sources reported that Harry was "distraught" after a request for taxpayer-funded police protection during a planned family visit was denied just days before they were due to arrive. A government spokesman declined to discuss specifics, citing the standard policy of not providing "detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' security."
The security concerns are not abstract. Harry has faced at least two documented threats since losing his protection detail, an Al-Qaida publication that called for his assassination and a dangerous paparazzi pursuit in New York.
Archewell, the couple's foundation, has pushed back on the suggestion that the issue is about accommodations. King Charles reportedly offered Harry and Markle a royal residence where they would have had full police protection, but the offer had not been accepted. Archewell responded with a pointed statement: "The issue has never been accommodation. The issue is whether appropriate and proportionate protective security is being provided throughout the entirety of the visit."
That distinction matters. A secure residence does not protect a family traveling through London streets, attending public events, or moving between venues. Buckingham Palace has reportedly treated Harry's visits as an institutional risk, a framing that suggests the security question is tangled up with broader palace politics rather than being handled as a straightforward protective matter.
The trip was originally expected to include the whole family. People magazine reported that Markle, Archie, and Lilibet definitively would not make the journey. Page Six's source pushed back slightly, saying it is "still possible", though the security picture makes that outcome unlikely.
The personal stakes are considerable. Prince William, 44, has not seen his younger brother since Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in 2022. Unnamed insiders told Us Weekly on Wednesday that William is "not planning to be there, but things could change."
Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, has reportedly been trying to convince William to meet with Harry, Meghan, and the children. Sources described her as "hopeful" William "will show up" but said she "respects his decision" either way. One insider said William will meet with his younger sibling only "when he's ready." The trust dynamics surrounding a potential reunion remain fragile on all sides.
King Charles, for his part, appears more willing. Sources described "definite excitement" from the family patriarch and said he is "optimistic about this," hoping the visit could be "the first step toward repairing the relationship between Harry and William, as well."
Whether that optimism is warranted depends on whether anyone actually shows up. Harry reportedly always travels with one or two of his own security team members. If Markle and the children stay in California, the visit becomes a solo trip, a father crossing the Atlantic without his family because the bureaucracy responsible for keeping them safe failed to do its job on schedule.
The most important unanswered question is the simplest one: who shelved the March Risk Management Board assessment, and on whose authority?
The source quoted by Page Six called it "inexplicably parked." That word, inexplicably, does a lot of work. It implies the delay was neither routine nor justified. It suggests someone made a decision, or failed to make one, and the result is that a family with documented security threats cannot get a current threat evaluation.
A rep for the royals did not immediately respond to Page Six's request for comment. No government body has been publicly identified as responsible for the delay. Harry's acceptance of royal accommodations from King Charles ahead of the visit suggests the logistical pieces were falling into place, until the security question froze the plan.
Fox News royal correspondent Katie Nicholl, speaking to the network about the broader dispute, noted that "Harry knows that he doesn't have automatic right to taxpayer-funded police protection when he's over here in the U.K." That may be legally settled. But the question of whether the government is handling his case-by-case reviews in good faith, or slow-walking them for reasons that have nothing to do with security, remains very much open.
Whatever one thinks of Harry and Markle's choices, the departure from royal life, the relocation to California, the public grievances, the security question stands on its own. A seven-year-old and a five-year-old have not visited their grandfather's country in over four years. Their father has faced credible threats. The review process designed to evaluate those threats was scheduled, then abandoned without explanation.
Earlier reporting suggested the full family would return to Britain for the Invictus Games event. That plan now appears to have collapsed, not over a policy disagreement or a family feud, but over a review board that simply stopped functioning.
The stated purpose of Harry's trip is the 2027 Invictus Games, which will be held in Birmingham. The games serve wounded veterans. The irony of a veteran-focused initiative being overshadowed by a government's failure to complete a routine security assessment needs no editorial embellishment.
When a government can't manage to convene a scheduled review board, and the result is that children can't safely visit their own family, the system isn't protecting anyone. It's just failing quietly enough that nobody has to answer for it.
