Prince Harry is due in the UK for a rare visit where he will honour the achievements of seriously ill youngsters and their families.

But as with his other recent trips back to his homeland, attention has turned to whether he will meet up with his father King Charles during his time back in the UK. Harry is due to attend the WellChild awards ceremony in London tonight in his role as the charity’s patron, a position he has held for more than 15 years.

There has been speculation about whether Harry will make a trip to Scotland to spend time with his father the King, who is undergoing cancer treatment. When Harry last visited the UK in May for a service at St Paul’s Cathedral for the Invictus Games, the father and son failed to meet.

There has been tension in their relationship, especially since Harry released his controversial memoir Spare and his bombshell Netflix series with wife Meghan Markle, where they railed against their royal relatives.

And according to one royal expert, one royal keen for them not to meet up is the King’s wife and Harry’s stepmother, Queen Camilla. Writing in the Sunday Times, the Daily Beast royal editor Tom Sykes said: “Neither side would definitively tell me whether a meeting is planned on this trip, but all the indications so far are that it is not. The King is in Scotland, gathering his strength for a forthcoming trip to Australia. The Queen, her friends have told me, is keen that Charles doesn’t get unnecessarily stressed out and is not encouraging a meeting.”

“For Harry, there can be no meaningful rehabilitation as a royal without reconciliation. His father’s recent health scare has added a sense of urgency to that quest.”

The King is believed to be spending time at his Balmoral home and it is thought he has not seen Harry since the duke rushed to his father’s side after Charles’s cancer diagnosis was announced in February.

The WellChild Awards celebrate the inspiring qualities of some of the country’s seriously ill young people and the dedication of those who keep them healthy and happy, including health, social care and education professionals.

Harry regularly attends the annual event hosted by WellChild, the national charity which provides a nationwide network of nurses, home makeover projects and family support programmes.

Before the big event, the duke will attend a reception to meet the category winners and their families before joining guests for the private awards ceremony where he will present the Most Inspirational Child (aged four to six) award and deliver a short speech.

Last week, it was also confirmed that Harry will be in Southern Africa early next month as part of a visit for his charity Sentebale, which he co-founded in 2006. It will be his first trip to the region since 2019 – and it appears to be a solo visit with no mention so far of wife Meghan Markle joining him.

The trip will see him gather world business leaders and philanthropists to work towards fostering prosperity in Southern African communities, specifically focused on young people. His Sentebale charity, which he co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006, will bring together leaders from Google ’s charitable arm and several other companies and organisations for a series of meetings and discussions in Lesotho and Johannesburg, South Africa.