The Crown Estate: A constitutional crisis looms
Steve Wilson
A campaign has been growing in Wales to devolve the Crown Estate ever since Scotland took control over the assets of their Crown Estate back in 2017.
As the push towards energy from renewables has grown, so has the value of the Crown Estate in Wales. Extraordinarily so.
Take a look at the rolling hills of Cymru. The growing number of wind farms has a striking visual impact and powerfully outlines the growth in this industry.
However, more and more people want to know why this new industrial revolution is just like the old one, where the people of Wales have no ownership or derive little benefit.
The Welsh electorate have often been accused of lacking engagement in politics, however, the issue of extraction of profits from our natural resources is an ever present and emotive one amongst the Welsh community, and so it should be.
Campaign
In February 2024, a ‘Devolve the Crown Estate in Wales’ campaign was launched by a partnership of campaigners.
Siarter Cartrefi, Cymdeithas Yr Iaith,Yes Cymru, Melin Trafod and others worked collaboratively to run the online launch event supported by Liz Saville Roberts Plaid Cymru MP and the former Labour MP Beth Winter.
Michael Sheen and Jerome Flynn supported with video messages. Over two hundred signed up and a working group was created.
This group agreed that this should be a single-issue campaign: to devolve the Crown Estate and direct the proceeds to a ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund for Community Benefit’.
One of the initiatives was to lobby our local authorities to support NOMs to devolve the Crown Estate. This would make the public mandate on the issue visible, incontrovertible.
A map posted by Yes Cymru graphically shows the growing support from local authorities. Seven authorities have already voted in support of devolution of the Crown Estate.
Five others will be voting on it in the new year. The campaign is growing. Welsh voices are coalescing around this issue.
Democracy
Whilst Devolving the Crown Estate campaign may have started as a single-issue it is clear that another matter is fundamentally bound in with this cause, and that is democracy.
The matter of the devolution of the Crown Estate has been described by detractors as something for which ‘there is little appetite in Wales’. Wrong.
The Welsh Government has a clear position in favour of this. Thousands have signed petitions; a “YouGov poll” in 2023 showed a majority of people were in support of this. Labour, the Greens, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru all support this.
It turns out that there is quite an appetite for ownership. For ownership of the crown estate, and, as it turns out, for ownership of energy too. So why the gas-lighting?
Westminster has taken a firm position on this issue. Their response to the Welsh Government is to deny the devolution of the Crown Estate.
They have their rationale, which crucially, does not acknowledge the mandate in Wales.
In July this year Baroness Carmen Smith asked Lord Livermore: “What discussions they have had with the Welsh Government about Devolving The Crown Estate?”
Lord Livermore replied: “The UK has had no discussions with the Welsh Government on Devolving the Crown Estate”.
Interestingly at a public event in north Pembrokeshire in November, Mark Drakeford was asked about Lord Livermore’s response, Drakeford was clear that Lord Livermore was mistaken on this point and that there had been discussions. Confusing.
Lord Livermore also said: “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.”
Imperial hangover
Scotland has managed their Crown Estate assets very well indeed, what makes us in Wales less able to do the same?
This may all seem like procedural detail – navigation of a clumsy out of date system with all its ‘eccentric but benign idiosyncrasies’ – don’t believe it.
The crown estate issue exposes the British State’s default when it comes to Wales. Its prerogative to keep a grip on Wales and its resources, to baulk at the slow but growing agency with which the Welsh are building their own self confidence and a desire for ownership and benefit from our natural resources.
When it comes to Wales, the so-called mother of all parliaments has no intention of addressing its imperial hangover, its grip on Cymru.
Energy, the devolution of the Crown Estate, is not just about logistics; the ownership of our natural resources is a moral imperative.
Whilst a third of children in Wales are growing up in poverty, with cash-strapped local authorities buckling under economic strain, money from our Crown Estate is extracted from Wales to Westminster and the Royal Family: yes, the King has his fingers firmly in the extractive pie too. Westminster must be persuaded that this is not ok.
The gist of the Westminster position is that they alone can manage the income from Welsh natural resources.
Nationhood
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.’
Directing the profits from renewables to support Welsh communities is the most ethical and efficient way to manage and invest that money.
It is also the most democratic thing to do.
However, many fear it may well end up devolved, but only once its riches have been plundered.
The mandate in Wales is very clear, yet Westminster says no.
The democratic vacuum this creates is profound and for all to see.
The Welsh government needs to decide whether our nationhood is notional or real and, if real, they must take an urgent stand on this.
This deficit must be addressed and the strongest legal action taken to assert and implement our national mandate as soon as possible.
The disquiet and heat around this issue is morphing very steadily into a constitutional one.
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Does anyone have an updated figure on how much money the crown estate generates from assets based in Wales?
The last figure I saw was £8.7m in 2021, which is quite small in the grand scheme of public funding. I’m sure that number has gone up since then, but the bulk of the Crown estate revenue comes from assets in London or the east coast of England. If the number hasn’t gone up significantly, then Wales actually would lose funding if this was devolved?!
That is not the case as Wales has not even began leasing its offshore resources for wind and tidal projects. This is going to be big for Wales and it is going to turn us into a rich country, just like Norway.
The UK does not want to let this happen because it will lead to Wales having self confidence and be just like Norway: Rich and Independent !
I want to hope that you’re right! but this won’t be close to Norwegian levels of wealth. Last year they got £50 billion. Gwynt y mor generates around £4-5mn per year for the crown estate.
But if you look at round four and around five offshore, Welsh sites are absent.
Factories and infrastructure are all on the East Coast.
Mona wind farm (decades away) is outside crown estate land
Yes, I found that figure too, but, in 2020 Welsh crown estate assets were valued at 49 million, by 2022 it was over 600 million (slightly more than Scotland), the crown estate as a whole made a profit of 442 million in 22/23, which by 23/24 became over 1,100 million… As far as I know this has mostly to do with offshore wind (according to the link posted I am correct in this), just found a report on the FOI request on the crown estate in 2022, the figures are not the same as those quoted above (presumably also from… Read more »
All good points. But any comparison to Scotland and England is really not suitable. The scale of the wind farms, and shear number is vastly greater than what is going through licensing in Wales. Unfortunately, the east coast of the UK is now where most offshore wind farms will be located, for a number of geographic and logistical reasons. That’s not ruling out wales completely, but the offshore wind farms currently being planned here are mostly outside Crown estate territory (will they even get payments for that?) and/or reliant upon floating turbines becoming commercially viable in deeper seas. I don’t… Read more »
No but there is a FOI request from Dafydd Wigley for amount paid by Dŵr Cymru but they refused to give it!!!
‘Scotland has managed their Crown Estate assets very well indeed, what makes us in Wales less able to do the same?’
Surely that’s the overriding and pivotal point?
The people of Wales feel strong about devolving the crown estate assets in Wales. It is a sense of pride and self confidence. No one wants to be exploited by a foreign power. It this devolution of these assets don’t take place soon it will lead to resentment, and a breakdown in trust between our two countries. The relationship between the Ukraine and Russia are not going too well, are they ? My advice to the UK government is to devolve these assets with its wealth to Wales now or lose all when the people’s of Scotland and Wales have… Read more »
We are continually told that all the constituent nations of the UK are equal. If Labour don’t devolve the Crown Estate to Wales seeing its management was devolved to Scotland in 2017 meaning hundreds of millions going to the Scottish treasury to be spent of education infrastructure etc… will finally prove that Wales and the Welsh are regarded as a lesser people & nation. We have already been slighted by both Conservative & Labour with HS2 consequential denied. And all the bull**** that the Welsh government received £1.7 billion extra is a lie seeing both Scotland & NI received similar,… Read more »
The call for the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales, is more to do with democracy and equity, than any significant financial gain to the Welsh people. The Crown Estate in Scotland is run, as it would in Wales, by Crown Estates Scotland, not the Scottish government. They are an independent body with their own remit from Westminster. It is the case that the profits from Crown Estates are handed over to the Scottish government, £101 million in 2023/24, but then there is a deduction from Scotland’s block grant because of the devolution of these responsibilities. The major part… Read more »
Good points Llew but I can’t help asking myself if Wales and Scotland are such basket cases why do our masters in Westminster begrudge a greater form of full independence
They are ‘ basket cases ‘ your words not mine, precisely because the resources, wealth, that would make them better off, is being used by our masters in Westminster for their own purposes. If they allowed more Independence, then Wales and Scotland would keep it for themselves. They would become more wealthy and UKr less. Renewable energy is one example. Wales and Scotland have the resources to be self-sufficient. England not so. Renewable energy therefore remains under the control of Westminster.
Look, is Scotland benefiting from it’s arrangement, or not?
I will give the answer for all runes a good shake for a simple answer. My point is that given Scottish water is publicly owned, a decision by the Scottish government, and bills are lower. Given that Scotland gets a share of HS2 money by virtue of being in control of their rail network, a similar arrangement that was turned down b.y the Welsh government Then the fact that they have similar social, financial and public service problems to Wales. I can’t see that the devolution of Crown Estates have made much difference. It’s the constitutional system that has to… Read more »
Wise words, LlG. The beauty of the Crown Estate campaign is that, for the first time in decades, Welsh nationalism has a project which all Welsh voters can get behind, including those who don’t vote woke and might vote Reform if offered nothing better. What puzzles me is why, after 100 years of Plaid Cymru, Wales has so few policy campaigns like this running now. Wales could tackle (if not actually solve) most of our problems if we controlled our own tax revenue, but we don’t. So Wales is stuck with the Block Grant system, with no sign of any… Read more »
It appears the only silver lining is that organisations are coming together. If Cymru is ever to achieve more power and ultimately independence, ‘everyone’ – every individual and every organisation -needs to work together. One strong voice. The Dragon is awakening, we need to pool resources and become united in making it roar again.
As usual Welsh Labour afraid to upset Weatminster. We need AM’s with balls.
Interestingly St David’s Pemba won’t get any renewal energy project approved if the US rador scheme outside Solfach goes ahead as MOD will object due to interference.
Lord Livermore is clearly unfamiliar with the concept of shared service centres. There is no reason why one organisation cannot have two differing decision makes for differing physical scope