UK Government to appoint Crown Estate commissioner for Wales

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A first-ever Crown Estate commissioner for Wales is to be appointed by the UK Government.

The Crown Estate is an independent commercial business which owns a diverse range of buildings, shoreline, seabed, forestry, agriculture and common land across the UK.

It works with the UK Treasury and generates revenue for the government.

Announcing the new commissioner role, Welsh secretary Jo Stevens said: “This is a landmark step toward ensuring that Welsh prosperity is at the heart of the government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower. 

“Our nation stands to benefit hugely from investment in floating offshore wind and we now have the representation we need to help seize that moment.”

The new commissioner will be appointed through the Public Appointments process and include consultation with the Welsh government.

They will work alongside other Crown Estate commissioners and give advice on Welsh matters at board level.

Sir Robin Budenberg CBE, chair of the Crown Estate, said he wants to increase the number of Crown Estate commissioners from eight to 12. He said this would “bring even more direct knowledge and understanding of the areas in which we operate and further strengthen our ability to deliver benefit to the whole of the UK”.

Devolution

There have been calls, particularly from Plaid Cymru, for the management of Crown Estate assets in Wales to be devolved to Wales – meaning its profits would go directly to the Welsh Government, instead of to the UK Government.

However, the UK Government has warned against this, saying devolving the Crown Estate would “significantly risk fragmenting the energy market that would undermine international investor confidence and delay the progress towards net zero, to the detriment of the whole of the UK”.

Great British Energy, the government’s new publicly-owned energy company, recently announced a new partnership with The Crown Estate to speed up the delivery of renewable energy and other technologies, which the government says could create up to £60bn of private investment into the UK.