UK Government firmly rejects devolving Crown Estate to Wales
Martin Shipton
A Treasury Minister has made it clear that the UK Government has no intention of devolving the Crown Estate to Wales, despite Welsh Labour’s support for such a move and an impassioned speech in the House of Lords from a former Labour Welsh Secretary.
Former Neath MP Lord Peter Hain told fellow peers that he was responsible for the 2006 devolution Act that led to the then National Assembly gaining full lawmaking powers.
In his speech he backed proposals from Plaid Cymru’s Lord Dafydd Wigley and Baroness Carmen Smith that would have seen Crown Estate revenues in Wales passed to the Welsh Government rather than to the UK Treasury.
Confrontation
He said: “The Crown Estate is devolved in Scotland; surely there is no reason why the same powers should not be devolved to Wales, especially by a new Westminster Labour Government committed to partnership rather than confrontation with the devolved administrations. That was the essence of the Prime Minister’s message to the special summit of the nations and regions last Friday, and in visiting Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in July within days of moving into Downing Street.
“Taking control of the management of Crown Estate assets in Wales would allow the Welsh Government greater autonomy over the speed and direction of the development of Welsh-sited Crown Estate property. The Welsh Government would have the opportunity to better align the management of Crown assets in Wales with the needs of Welsh citizens. The management of Crown assets also generates significant revenue to the UK Exchequer. Devolution of the Crown Estate would better align revenues from Wales with the income available for the Welsh Government to deliver on their priorities for Welsh citizens.
“Marine planning is a holistic, statutory process for managing the UK’s seas including the seabed. Aligning Welsh marine planning with seabed leasing rounds for new developments, such as renewable energy, would help to ensure joined-up and plan-led decision-making.
“Currently, there are stand-alone leasing rounds for certain types of activity, such as offshore wind or marine aggregates extraction. These leasing rounds, which occur from time to time, take account of relevant government policy, but devolution of the Crown Estate to Scotland has allowed a reshaping of the process, whereby the marine planning process sets the overall policy direction with leasing rounds only progressed after it has set national strategic policy. This ensures that marine management is better joined up and delivered.
“Taking control of the management of the seabed would allow Welsh Government Ministers both to better implement their policy decisions and priorities for the marine area and to ensure that all relevant interests can be reflected in a way that is simply not as possible with a top-heavy, centralised and London-centric agenda.”
Expert group
Lord Hain said the final report of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales had recommended that: “The Welsh and UK Governments should establish an expert group to advise urgently on how the devolution settlement and inter-governmental engagement in relation to energy could be reformed to prepare for rapid technical innovation in energy generation and distribution, to ensure that Wales can maximise its contribution to net zero and to the local generation of renewable energy. The remit of the group should include advising on the options for the devolution of the Crown Estate, which should become the responsibility of the devolved government of Wales as it is in Scotland.”
Lord Hain said that Huw Irranca-Davies, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs, told the Senedd on July 17 2024: “We really welcome the opportunity to collaborate now with the UK Government on the proposals and the progression towards the devolution of the Crown Estate in Wales, which remains our aspiration.” There are details that have to be worked out on that as well, but I think the positive engagement that we’ve seen so far from the UK Government on maximising the benefits of the way that the Crown Estate operates currently within Wales bodes well for the future”.
Limits
The Welsh Government added: “Our longstanding position is that the Crown Estate should be devolved to Wales in line with the position in Scotland. We have been clear that the current devolution settlement for energy limits our ability to deliver policy in Wales in a way that reflects our policy priorities and the needs of future generations. We welcome … the broader emphasis on improving intergovernmental relations given the interactions between UK government policy and devolved policy with respect to energy and climate change.”
Lord Hain told the House of Lords: “Welsh Labour’s case is that devolving the Crown Estate is vital so that profits from leasing land for energy projects can be retained in Wales as they are in Scotland.
“I understand that it has been argued in the past, on behalf of the previous Conservative Government, that introducing a ‘new entity’ – as they described it – to manage the Crown Estate in Wales would ‘fragment the market, complicate existing processes, and likely delay further development offshore, undermining investment in Welsh waters’.
“Frankly, that reflects old, centralised, conservative, anti-devolution Whitehall thinking. I hope that there will be fresh thinking from this new Labour Government, although I fully recognise that the impossible financial predicament inherited from the bankrupt Tory Government means that finding the money to devolve management of the Crown Estate to Wales at this time would be very difficult.
“I also understand that this matter is not currently a priority, given all the other matters on health, education and local government that certainly are. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend the Minister, when he replies, will give me some encouragement that discussions will now take place with Welsh Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan and her colleagues on their firm desire to see powers over the Crown Estate devolved to Wales in the future, as they have long been in Scotland.”
No hope
But Lord Livermore, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, gave no hope in his response that Crown Estate revenues would be devolved to Wales.
He said: “I fully recognise that there are now two Labour governments in the UK. While I believe that there is greater benefit for the people of Wales and the wider UK in retaining the Crown Estate’s current form, I shall of course continue to discuss these issues with the First Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales to ensure that Wales sees the full benefits of the Crown Estate and other forms of investment.
“Devolving the Crown Estate to Wales would most likely require the creation of a new entity to take on the role of the Crown Estate in Wales. This by definition would not benefit from the Crown Estate’s current substantial capability, capital and systems abilities … This would indeed further fragment the UK energy market by adding an additional entity and, as a consequence, it would risk damaging international investor confidence in UK renewables and disrupting the National Energy System Operator’s grid connectivity reform, which is taking a whole-systems approach to the planning of generation and network infrastructure.
“That reform aims to create a more efficient system and reduce the waiting times for generation projects to connect to the grid. The cumulative impact of these effects would likely delay the pathway to net zero by decades.
“Furthermore, the Crown Estate’s marine investments are currently made on a portfolio-wide basis across England and Wales. To devolve to Wales would disrupt these existing investments, since they would need to be restructured to accommodate a Welsh-specific entity. Let me give two examples. The first is the Crown Estate’s £50m supply chain accelerator, which will match-fund early stage projects related to offshore wind leasing round 5, and the £50m investment in the offshore wind evidence and change programme, which brings together government bodies, the industry and key stakeholders from across the UK to better understand environmental impacts of offshore wind.
“To devolve the Crown Estate at this time would also risk jeopardising the existing pipeline of offshore wind development in the Celtic Sea planned into the 2030s. The Crown Estate’s offshore wind leasing round 5 is spread across the English and Welsh administrative boundaries in the Celtic Sea. It was launched in February this year and is expected to contribute 4.5 gigawatts of total energy capacity, or enough to power four million homes. In addition to energy, the extensive jobs and supply-chain requirements of round 5 will also likely deliver significant benefits for Wales and the wider UK.
“Lumen, an advisory firm to the Crown Estate, has estimated that manufacturing, transporting and assembling the wind farms could potentially create around 5,300 jobs and create a £1.4bn boost for the UK economy.
“As I have said, devolution would also delay UK-wide grid connectivity reform. The Crown Estate is using its data and expertise as managers of the seabed to feed into the National Energy System Operator’s new strategic spatial energy plan.
“For Wales, the Crown Estate is working in partnership with the energy system operator to ensure that its current pipeline of Welsh projects, the biggest of which is the round 5 offshore wind opportunity in the Celtic Sea, can benefit from this coordinated approach to grid connectivity up front. Introducing a new entity, which would have control of assets only within Wales, into this complex operating environment, where partnerships have already been formed, would not make commercial sense.
“Secondly, the Crown Estate’s assets and interests in Wales, as compared to its assets in England, are of a fundamentally smaller magnitude, which would very likely not be commercially viable if the costs were unsupported by the wider Crown Estate portfolio. The Crown Estate, in its present form, has the ability to take a longer-term approach to its investments and spread the costs of those investments across its entire portfolio. A self-contained, single entity in Wales would not have the same ability, nor would it benefit from the expertise that the Crown Estate has developed over decades in delivering offshore wind at scale.
“A devolved entity would be starting from scratch, midway through a multimillion-pound commercial tendering process, at a time when the Crown Estate is undertaking critical investment in the UK’s path towards net zero.”
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
Let the robbery of Welsh resources continue, Labour offers nothing to Wales. They are only interested in how much wealth they can extract from our country and with the full support of Labour in the Senedd
Let the extraction of Welsh wealth continue they say.
No reparations of any kind…’Commonwealth’ always was a joke title…
Thats all the English Royals Establishment and government is STEAL STEAL of Wales when are the people going to grow a pair and get out of the U K
How much does each council in Cymru pay to the Crown Estates every year?
Doesn’t that largely depend on whether the local authority has a coastline?
It probably does, but most Welsh counties do have a coastline.
The Crown Estate manage a rural portfolio of 185,000 acres across England and Wales, comprising agricultural farmland, upland and commons interests in Cumbria and Wales, strategic land, forestry, renewable energy assets, minerals and quarries.
Quite some sizeable outfit. And yet until this recent issue was raised here in Wales, I’d never previously even heard of it, beyond an unexplained passing allusion to it in a news bulletin!
Not exactly, it goes up estuaries, a short stretch of the tidal Dyfi eg
Hain has basically made a case there that is also very relevant for Welsh Statehood. Livermore demonstrates quite clearly why this Union works against us. The UK is built around its central beaurocracy. It evolved to serve an empire. That empire was all about the pursuit of wealth by Britain’s upper classes. The empire might have gone but the structure remains and the purpose unchanged. The continuing enrichment of the wealthy. Wales will not be permitted democratic control of its wealth because the centre deems it necessary to retain control of their revenue streams. Wales can stay poor and be… Read more »
Whether it’s the UK’s upper classes or just capitalism, I think with independence we would need to be very alive to the fact that there are plenty of Welsh people who would usurp the positions currently held by Britain’s upper classes. There are plenty of wannabe oligarchs in Cymru.
The Crown Estates own, on top of all the wet bits, Caernarfon, Beaumaris, Denbigh, Conwy, Flint and Harlech Castles but Cadw pay the bills…
The Aristocracy and Gentry own approx 30%…
United Utilities and Dwr Cymru own about one hundred thousand acres…
And on and on…
Wannabe oligarchs ? How would I get started ? Do I go get an arch from somewhere and work around that ? Has any of Putin’s mates written a book on how to literally help yourself ? No point reading Boris’ tome cos it’s full of lies and self justifying nonsense. Seriously though we have a nation of extremes with a relatively small elite clique who would happily enjoy the oligarchy, and on the other hand a huge dependency culture where people have elected to be idle as far as possible and some business leaders who don’t seem to be… Read more »
If creating a new entity is the problem they could simply restructure the existing entity to give the Welsh Gov a role in the decision making including a veto in any areas directly involving Wales and a population share of all profits.
Total baloney from the chinless wonders in England, who think people will believe whatever spin they conjure up. This will come back to bite Labour on the bum when we have our say on them at our country’s next election, barely 18 months away.
What? When at least a quarter of the electorate vote for Farage and Reform UK? Be careful what you wish for. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a Plaid Cymru led government, but I just don’t think Plaid are living on the same planet as most of the rest of us. They may recently have stirred from their slumber a little and pronounced on a few things with some apparent vigour, but it’s far too little, too late. I know that the Senedd is supposed to be a calm setting in the world of politics, but the last… Read more »
I have to disagree with your analysis. Thanks to Rhun ap Iorwerth, Plaid have just enjoyed their best ever GE results. Also, bear in mind that historically, PC have always increased their percentage share in WA/Senedd elections by between 1.5 and 2.8 times the percentage they achieved in the general election immediately prior to each WA/Senedd election. Assuming this pattern continues in 2026, this suggests they have a very realistic chance of being the largest party after the next Senedd election.
RW, I agree with Padi regarding the potential impact of Reform. The new voting system with its closed lists will be just the kind of setting into which Reform can introduce all sorts of “disruptors”. Of course its designers never imagined or foresaw that kind of extreme development but it’s becoming far too probable.
Reform are largely benefiting from Conservative voters defecting. Labour are losing voters but they seem to be splitting between Plaid, Libs and Greens.
I also think a fair number of Labour voters are being tempted by Reform. Earlier today I was following a post on Facebook about the new temporary homeless units in the old Grangetown gasworks site and was shocked by the sheer amount of anti-asylum seeker rhetoric clearly heavily influenced by Farage’s rhetoric. What they were peddling was complete baloney, but what was remarkable was the similarity of the claims being made. The influence of Farage and the far right was quite clear. I think that Reform will also attempt to leverage themselves as being more acceptable and respectable than people… Read more »
Reform are also taking Cymru very seriously, which is something I don’t think either Plaid or Labour are choosing to see, or take anything like seriously enough. With Starmer & Co effectively acting as Reform recruiting agents due to their serious missteps (WFA and Two Child Cap plus surveillance of poor people’s bank accounts) Plaid is being offered an wide open opportunity to offer something different. Why haven’t they grabbed it? I guess we could pontificate for hours on this subject, but basically there is nothing wrong with the voting system (bar closed lists, but that’s a topic for a… Read more »
Yes, Plaid have four MPs, which is fine, an extra member after what, 50 years? Once again it’s a case of Wales celebrating mediocrity. There are 32 parliamentary constituencies in the country, so expect Plaid to have at least increased substantially more than that, especially in the South East where for many decades the party was literally shadowing Labour, hence the particular venom and spite that is palpable among died in the wool Labour supporters in these areas towards Plaid. However, that vast hinterland, taken for granted by Labour and economically abandoned since Thatcher, (but with serious economic erosion since… Read more »
“Sit down. Shut up. Accept you are inferior. All glory to England.” Scandelous. What does Lady Morgan say? Did she go to the H o L for the debate? I think we should be told.
Imperialism still stealing from us. They hate us
Starmerite Labour now seems set to be very largely a party of the UK’s status quo. I think that became pretty obvious when Sir Keir sought election as leader from his party’s membership on a clear platform of radical reform, but then, once elected, proceeded to retreat rapidly from that sort of policy platform. My impression, for what it’s worth, is that Starmer’s judged that ‘middle England’, instinctively conservative and, more than ever so in these more jingoistic ‘rule Britannia’ post-Brexit days, is likely to return to backing the Tories or – even worse – switch to voting for Farage… Read more »
You’re right John but it was pretty clear very early on this was how they would go. The problem is that Wales continues to slowly suffocate in this State. The question is “What do we do about it?”
I doubt whether much can be done about it in the short term. Personally I think that the UK as a successful significant – if no longer world-leading – nation state is gradually declining, but middle England hasn’t grasped that and I don’t think it’s registered that much in Wales either, thus far.
I suspect that won’t change for a while yet, and it’ll only change when rather more ordinary Welsh citizens become more radically dissatisfied with the contemporary status quo than presently appears to be the case.
We will never be given anything by the English establishment, whether we deserve it or not, fair or not. Violence in N Ireland forced change, and the threat of the SNP in Scotland forcing a indy referendum prompted concessions. We have had neither the violence or political threat via the ballot box to force change, and until we do, we will remain an afterthought in Westminster, regardless of who is in power. Only we can change our fortunes.
The answer is to join Plaid Cymru, campaign for statehood, support your candidates, contribute to the movement, engage positively with the electorate and help win that mandate. Let’s not make the mistake Labour made in 2017. We have to unite to fight for a Plaid Government in 2026.
APATHY is the problem
Our future lies in the hands of people who do not care about Wales. We have little to no control over our own lands and assets, and little say in our own direction and future as a country. It’s time to leave the UK, and forge a path that’s best for Cymru.
These excuses are pitiful. The only obvious reason why is because there is too much wealth to be lost by the Crown and Treasury. We will have to do it forcefully – when independence comes. And come it must, this is just one example of why we can’t afford not to be.
Why in this day and age we are taking orders from another country on what we can and cannot do (mainly ‘cannot do’)? It’s time for a big change!! I thought that “United” meant that all nations had a say without a dominant one who allow themselves to crack the whip and take whatever they want. Independence now.
Third attempt, perhaps it will be allowed if I censor myself… Head office says no, again… The response is a massive (censored word, usually shortened to the letters BS) word salad, apparently Wales having control over it’s own marine assets would ‘delay net zero plans by decades’, ‘disrupt grid connectivity’, ‘risk damaging investor confidence in UK renewable energy’, ‘disrupt existing developments’, ‘would jeopardize the (deliberately engineered) cross border ‘Celtic sea development’, “we might be losing 5,300 (currently imaginary) jobs”, ‘Crown estate assets are smaller in Wales than in England’, ‘Wales would ‘lose’ ‘the expertise’ on offshore wind’… Apparently the Crown… Read more »