The Earl of Devon (CB)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to return refreshed from recess. I trust that the Government are refreshed as well, despite their rather riotous summer. This is, as has been recognised, a slim Bill, but it offers a rare opportunity to explore important fundamentals at the outset of the Government’s ambitious legislative agenda. These include the nature and future of the Crown Estate itself, the renewable energy transition, and the tricky balancing act inherent in achieving sustainable economic growth within a five-year election cycle without damaging long-term consequences for our nation’s stock of natural capital. The Bill’s silence on biodiversity, particularly in our sensitive marine ecosystems, is regrettable. I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on that point. The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has made much of his ambition to fix the foundations of our nation; you do not get much more foundational than the Crown Estate. The helpful Library briefing states that the Crown Estate dates from “1760, when King George III handed land and property over to the government … in return for a fixed salary”— now the sovereign grant. This is not strictly accurate in at least two regards. First, the Crown Estate dates from the Norman conquest, when William, Duke of Normandy, took England by force. By 1086’s Domesday audit, it amounted to some 18% of the country and it is therefore an unapologetically feudal landholding. Secondly, the Crown Estate was not handed over to Parliament. The land and its associated capital still belong to the King in right of the Crown; they are simply managed by the Crown Estate commissioners and the surplus income is directed to the Treasury. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this point. The Crown Estate is therefore a hereditary feudal estate. It is far from the only hereditary feudal estate in the country—here I should note my interests—but it does have the best PR. I noted in recent debates on leasehold reform how “feudal” is consistently adopted in parliamentary discourse as a pejorative term, used unfairly to denigrate long-established roles, rights and interests that have served our nation well over the last millennium, such as the monarchy. I also note that the current Labour Government’s own manifesto has labelled hereditary interests as “indefensible”. How then do the Government justify, as their first order of business, the modernisation of the hereditary feudal institution of the Crown Estate, particularly when a subsequent order of business is the abolition of the hereditary peerage, one of the other feudal and hereditary mainstays of our constitutional settlement? This seems a little insensitive. Is it perhaps because the Government see a golden opportunity to extract more revenue for Treasury coffers as a quid pro quo for the Crown Estate’s renewal and continued existence? We should ask ourselves what this transaction will do for the long-term health and well-being of the Crown Estate and its precarious constitutional place. I note the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, in this regard. I note the Crown Estate’s excellent public relations. The current public consensus is that it is a benign body, managing ancient rights and land for the public benefit, but do not be mistaken. Here, I take the invitation of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to throw a little more light upon it. The Crown Estate has always been, and will continue to be, an aggressive commercial operator, skirting the edges of the law for maximum gain. Again, I note my interests, particularly as Earl of Devon, as in that capacity I can vouch for the Crown Estate’s dubious foundations. I trust that noble Lords will forgive me the trip down memory lane as I vent the frustrations of the past 800 years. Take for example, the Isle of Wight—just as the Crown did. Until 1293, it was a largely independent kingdom, governed initially by a Norman comrade of William the Conqueror, Richard de Redvers, whose son Baldwin became Earl of Devon in 1142. The last de Redvers Earl of Devon was a woman—perhaps surprising given the reluctance of Parliament today to countenance female succession to hereditary peerages. The great Countess Isabella de Fortibus expanded Carisbrooke Castle, built the Countess Wear over the River Exe, long outlived her husband and brother and became one of Plantagenet England’s greatest landholders. Edward I pursued her relentlessly for the Isle of Wight, of which she was titular queen, but she consistently refused him—that is, until her deathbed, to which the King dispatched two bishops to persuade her to give up the island, plus three valuable manors, in return for a cash payment of 6,000 marks. She was an elderly lady in declining health. The deed was drawn up on 9 November 1293. She never signed it, but rather—according to those bishops—waved her hand in acquiescence and died on 10 November, the very next day. Her heir Hugh de Courtenay, the first Courtenay Earl of Devon, never received the payment. Later raids on Courtenay lands were less subtle. In 1538, Henry VIII simply beheaded his cousin, Henry Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, on baseless conspiracy charges arising from his Plantagenet bloodline. The King seized 13 manors by attainder, and they now form the core of the Duchy of Cornwall. Your Lordships may find this history lesson a little self-indulgent; it is, but in a few months your Lordships will not have many hereditaries present with memories by which to hold our sovereign to account, and our Parliament will be poorer for that. I also note that this avaricious conduct did not cease with George III’s transfer of the management of his feudal estates to Parliament. As recently as the 1990s, my father endured a long-running battle with the Crown Estate over title to the fundus and foreshore of the River Exe estuary. Neither attainders, beheadings nor disingenuous bishops were available to the Crown Estate this time around, and after many years my father was able to reassert his ancient manorial rights. Tensions with the Crown Estate continue. Ownership of Salcombe Castle is unsettled and a harbour revision order governing the Exe estuary is yet to be resolved. The expansion of the Crown Estate’s powers will therefore have very real impacts upon arguably more traditional, and certainly more indigenous and communal, interests. This begs the important question of what safeguards will be placed upon the exercise of these new powers to ensure that local interests are not trampled upon. In particular, I note that the Crown Estate Bill removes restrictive limitations found in Section 3(4) of the Crown Estate Act 1961, affording Crown Estate commissioners a considerable expansion of powers. The Crown Estate’s briefing note suggests that these powers will be used to “mobilise investment” and “expand activities across our diverse portfolio to accelerate our strategy”, with a focus on clean power, including offshore wind; infrastructure and skills; and urban regeneration. These are all worthy and very important tasks, but can the Minister clarify the manner in which this massive expansion of activities will be subject to the control of Parliament? I note, for example, that until now the Crown Estate commissioners have been paid by Parliament to undertake their closely prescribed investment powers. However, it is now proposed that they pay themselves out of the money they generate, using a vastly broader array of investment and borrowing powers. This raises the uneasy prospect of conflicts of interests and potential cronyism, about which I know the Prime Minister is very sensitive. It would help our understanding if the Minister could explain why, in the Crown Estate Act 1961, it was felt necessary to restrict the Crown Estate’s investment powers so much. Nowhere in the Government’s or the Crown Estate’s briefings, nor in the Explanatory Notes, is the purpose of these original Section 3(4) restrictions explained. If the noble Lord, Lord Young, is correct, I do not think Hansard will be much help either. We should not be asked to remove these powers without knowing their original role and why it is no longer applicable. It is suggested that the current investment powers enjoyed by the Crown Estate are unduly restrictive, but what is the benchmark against which that is to be judged? A quick look at the Crown Estate’s finances reveals that its revenue profits have increased in the last decade from £256 million in 2012 to £1.1 billion in 2022. Its net assets, which still belong to the sovereign, have increased from £8.1 billion to £15.5 billion over the same period. By any measure, the Crown Estate is doing very well. I note it is doing vastly better than any of its traditional land-based feudal competitors. I also noticed the comment in briefings that in recent years, given such financial abundance, statutory transfers have ensured that revenue profits have been added to the Crown Estate’s capital reserves. As I understand it, in layman’s terms, this is the conversion of Treasury revenue to enhance the value of the hereditary Crown Estate, as owned by the sovereign. Is that really true? How can we be certain that these new investments and expanded activities are undertaken in a way that is regionally equitable? For example, Great British Energy, with which the Crown Estate recently announced an expansive new partnership, is based in Scotland. Will it therefore not naturally favour Scottish interests over those of other regions? I note here my membership of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Great South West and the importance to the south-west peninsula of the Celtic Sea floating offshore wind project, which is highly dependent upon the Crown Estate for its success. It is important to Wales too, I understand. With that in mind, what reassurance can the Minister provide that the south-west will see equal support from the investment from the Crown Estate and GBE, alongside investment in regional skills and the network and infrastructure necessary to deliver the project? How will the Crown Estate and GBE be forced to ensure that the communities that bear the greatest infrastructure burden of offshore renewables will get their fair share of the revenue generated by such projects? Is it appropriate to delegate all this complex political decision-making to the apolitical Crown Estate commissioners and the commercial management of Great British Energy? What is Parliament’s role in all this? I am particularly sympathetic to the concerns of the Welsh Government that the profits from the exploitation of the Crown Estate in Wales should revert to the benefit of the Welsh. Likewise, the profits from the south-west should revert to the people of the peninsula, please. Further, how have the Government satisfied themselves that the partnership between the Crown Estate and Great British Energy is free from conflicts of interest and fully compliant with the necessary procurement regulations? Both partners are emanations of the state, and I am not aware that Great British Energy sought open bids or applications from any other marine fundus owners for partnership to deliver renewable energy from their land holdings. I admit that most of those land holdings are less extensive than the Crown Estates, but that is due to nefarious historical reasons we have already noticed. Finally, and perhaps of most fundamental foundational importance, how will these amendments to the Crown Estate Act contribute to the lasting shared prosperity of the nation, which is the Crown Estate’s stated mission? How can we in Parliament be certain that the glut of offshore energy development engendered by this legislation will not permanently damage the health and vitality of our most important and vulnerable national asset: our natural capital? Many of your Lordships will recall the ground-breaking report of Professor Dasgupta on the economics of biodiversity, commissioned by the Treasury some years ago. Noble Lords may also remember his damning conclusion that our myopic pursuit of economic growth, without accounting for the consumption of natural capital, renders us all poorer in the long run. How can Parliament ensure that the vast economic expansion enabled by this legislation will not come at the cost of the biodiversity of our unique and most precious marine ecosystems? In particular, can the Minister please provide us with an update on Defra’s progress on marine net gain, following the consultation of 2022? I understand that this legislation, and the vast expansion in offshore energy that will follow, should not occur until MNG is properly legislated and in force. Otherwise, we will be closing the stable door long after the horse has bolted, leaving our marine ecosystems in tatters. I will be willing to forgo my claim to the Isle of Wight if the Government can provide satisfactory assurance that our marine ecosystems will be better safeguarded pursuant to this legislation.