DEVOLVE THE CROWN ESTATE

Plaid Cymru has long called for Wales-specific Crown Estate figures.

Now we have them - and the case for devolving it is stronger than ever...

When Wales creates wealth, Wales' communities should benefit. 

It's time to devolve the Crown Estate.

THE DEVOLUTION OF THE CROWN ESTATES BILL

Plaid Cymru’s Crown Estate Wales Bill has passed its third reading (unopposed) in the House of Lords today, (20th January) this marks a symbolic victory for the long-running campaign to bring control of Welsh natural assets into Welsh hands. 

The Bill was first introduced by Plaid Cymru peer Dafydd Wigley, who has argued that Wales should have the same powers as Scotland over its Crown Estate. The legislation calls on the UK Government to devolve responsibility for the Crown Estate in Wales to the Welsh Government.

The Crown Estate controls large swathes of the Welsh seabed and coastline, as well as around 50,000 acres of land, generating significant revenue that currently flows to the UK Treasury and the monarchy rather than being reinvested directly in Welsh communities.

Despite the smooth passage of the Bill through the House of Lords, the Labour Westminster Government has clearly reiterated its opposition to any devolution of control of the Crown Estates. Lord Livermore, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said ministers believe the current arrangements “provide the best outcomes for Wales and the wider United Kingdom”.

Plaid Cymru has signalled that the issue is far from settled. Llinos Medi, the MP for Ynys Môn, confirmed she will reintroduce the Bill as a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons. Whether it progresses will depend on whether the UK Government agrees to allocate parliamentary time.

Ms Medi has also pledged to table an Early Day Motion to increase pressure on ministers to allow the Bill to be debated. The move follows a failed attempt last year to amend the UK Government’s Crown Estate Bill.

Back in February 2025, Ms Medi proposed an amendment that would have given Wales parity with Scotland by devolving Crown Estate powers. The amendment was voted down, including by every Welsh Labour MP.

Since then, support for devolution has grown within Wales. All 22 local authorities have passed motions calling for the Crown Estate to be devolved, while a leaked Welsh Labour election strategy acknowledged that the party has “proudly made the case” for devolution, despite it not yet being delivered by the UK Government.

Dafydd Wigley, speaking after the Lords vote, said: “I am very pleased that this Bill, that I first introduced to the House of Lords in September 2024, has today passed its final stage. Plaid Cymru and I have consistently made the case that Welsh resources should be in Welsh hands, and I am glad to have secured support from across the House that this is the most logical way for Welsh communities to benefit from the wealth they generate.

“I now look forward to the Bill progressing to the House of Commons, where Llinos Medi will proudly present it. The UK Government should make time for the Bill’s consideration because it is what Wales deserves.

“When the Bill was passed in the Lords the government chief whip announced that ‘the King has signified his consent’, which is the normal procedure, but in the Commons the government will be pressing MPs not to make time for it. What would be really interesting would be if some Welsh Labour MPs were prepared to support it.”

Llinos Medi MP added: “The passing of this Bill in the House of Lords today ensures that the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales is firmly back on the agenda here in Westminster. It remains deeply disappointing that not a single Welsh Labour MP supported my amendment to bring these powers into Welsh hands last year.

“This was a missed opportunity to stand up for their own constituents, who would directly benefit from ensuring that the wealth generated by Wales’s natural resources is retained and reinvested in our communities, rather than continuing to be siphoned off to London.

“For far too long, wealth has been extracted from our communities in Wales, and we have very little say over how it is managed or where the profits go. This Bill presents a real opportunity to begin redressing that historic imbalance. We only need to look at Scotland, which has had full control over its Crown Estate since 2016 and since then has reinvested millions of pounds each year back into local communities. Wales deserves the same parity of power.

“It is not only Plaid Cymru calling for this either – every single council in Wales has now voted in favour of these powers being devolved, demonstrating a clear national consensus. I therefore look forward to making this case once again to the UK Government when I reintroduce this Bill to the House of Commons as a Private Members’ Bill. The UK Government should make time for it, because Wales cannot be denied control over its own resources any longer.”

Last month, the Labour in Wales Welsh Government announced it was setting up a new expert group to examine options for reforming how the Crown Estate operates in Wales. The group, which first met in December, is exploring governance, accountability and the potential devolution of powers, reflecting growing momentum behind reform.

A BUDGET WITH A WHIFF OF PANIC

Not that long ago, if there was a budget leak then there might have been resignations, now in the run up to the budget lots of kites (ideas) are flown and various ideas appear from the ether to be be tested - before budget day - so very New Labour. 

The recent debacle over income tax increases is a case in point.

A Budget that’s been rewritten in panic will not deliver for Wales. With the Chancellor removing a major proposals barely two weeks before Budget Day – something which triggered a run on UK government bonds – if nothing else this suggests that there is something seriously wrong at the heart of this Labour in Westminster Government.

Our nation needs financial and political stability and needs the ability to plan ahead. A continually reshaped Budget - changed to stop or contain Labour infighting, will not meet the needs of Welsh communities. 

This is no way to run an economy, especially when devolved public services rely on predictable funding. Particularly when the uncertainty in pushes up borrowing costs, it’s our communities that pay the price.

Plaid Cymru has reiterated its call for a new fiscal settlement for Wales, including:

• Devolving the Crown Estate, allowing Wales to retain revenue from its natural resources,
• Fair funding for Wales, including the long-denied HS2 consequential payments,
• A tax system that treats income from wealth fairly, rather than placing the burden on workers through threshold freezes and stealth rises

 A budget that has been drafted in panic will always fail to deliver for Wales. Our nation needs a stable, ambitious plan shaped by Welsh priorities, not last-minute U-turns in London.

Only Plaid Cymru will fight for fairness for Wales from this Budget: fair funding, including the long-denied HS2 consequentials; a tax system that treats income from wealth fairly rather than stealth tax rises; and control over the Crown Estate so that profits generated from our natural wealth stay in Wales.

WALES AND THE NEW UNION

It is Interesting to note that Labour in Westminster initially said that they were going big on devolution in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 but are remained fairly tight lipped if not literally silent on any further devolution for Wales e.g. The Crown Estates, Police and Criminal Justice, railways. etc 

Interestingly enough where this may get even more interesting is they one of the bills mooted in the Kings Speech - aims to bring the railways into state ownership. Now railways in Scotland are already effectively state owned - the state in question being Scotland.  And in Wales, as you would expect, only part of railways in Wales are devolved, and the rest of them run by three or four franchises.

I wonder if Labour in Westminster will simply ask for the devolved bit back? And if they do, I would suspect, based on Labour Wales’s timid behaviour towards the various former Conservative Westminster governments, simply expect the Labour in Wales branch office to quite happily hand the fairly limited control of railways in Wales back to Westminster. 

While policing is already devolved in some parts of England, and may well be devoted to new devoted regions in England there appears to be no chance of it being devolved in Wales by the current Labour in Westminster government - and it won’t even be asked for. While the creation of a council of the regions and nations is a welcome step up for the English regions, it’s clearly a step down for Cymru / Scotland and NI.  

Clearly Labour in Wales under its new leader has absolutely no intention of asking for even a portion of the revenue ( current and potential ) to be devolved to the Welsh Government in Cardiff. This may simply confirm that Labour in Wales has completed the transition from ideological to administrative and exits simply to administer rather than to innovate or even campaign beyond periodic rhetoric at election time. 

So much for making devolution work and kick starting our economy? Perhaps Labour in Wales’s lack of vision will lead to a new slogan different from the positively Orwellian “Stability is change” we may yet end up with “Shush! This is as good as it gets!”. It certainly does not have to be this way… Labour in Wales has run its course, bereft of any ideas or vision. Roll on 2026…

LABOUR'S HOLLOW ENERGY PLAN

Plaid Cymru note that Labour’s energy plans won't maximise benefits for Welsh communities without the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales.

 

Plaid Cymru MP for Caerfyrddin, Ann Davies MP said that the Prime Minister’s and First Minister’s visit to West Wales to highlight their plans for GB Energy and Trdyan Gwyrdd Cymru failed to commit to keeping profits generated from new energy projects within Wales.

 

The Crown Estate owns 65% of Wales’ foreshore and riverbeds, and more than 50,000 acres of land, profits from which go directly to the UK Treasury and Monarch.

 

Without direct control over these natural resources through devolution of the Crown Estate, the profits generated from new clean projects will continue to leave Wales, rather than be shared between Welsh communities as is the case in Scotland.

 

The Crown Estate is recoding record net profits, having recently announced £1.1 billion net revenue profit which was £658.1 million higher than the previous year. The devolved Scottish Crown Estate generated £103.6 million for the Scottish Government in 2023.

 

Ann Davies MP said:

 

“It is incredibly disappointing to see Eluned Morgan failing to stand up for Welsh interests by not pressing Keir Starmer to devolve the Crown Estate. Devolution would give us the powers we need to set the terms of renewable energy developments, and ensure that the profits from our natural resources stay here in Wales.

 

“The Labour Welsh Government has previously said that the Crown Estate in Wales should be devolved, in line with the position in Scotland.  Today was an opportunity for the new First Minister to finally raise this pressing need with Keir Starmer.

 

“Her failure to do so will mean that profits from investments made by GB Energy and Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru will continue to leave Wales for the Treasury and the Monarch. This is money which should be kept and reinvested here in Wales to address the high levels of poverty and inequality facing our communities, and bring down our energy bills.  It appears that Labour’s energy plans will ring hollow for ordinary people in Wales.”

 

- Ends -

A WELSH GREEN NEW DEAL

TATA STEEL: Plaid Cymru pledges ‘a Welsh Green new deal’ to safeguard communities from job losses

 

Plaid Cymru has pledged a ‘Welsh Green New Deal’ as part of their general election campaign.

 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson for Economy and Energy, Luke Fletcher MS said that Plaid Cymru’s Welsh Green New Deal would “safeguard communities in south Wales from thousands of job losses in the steel industry” and would create “rewarding, meaningful and fair work emerging in the green and net-zero sector to build a thriving economy” across Wales.

 

Tata Steel plans to close both blast furnaces in Port Talbot by the end of September. A new £1.25bn electric arc furnace, which melts scrap steel, will begin construction in Port Talbot in summer 2025.

 

Almost 2,800 jobs are expected to be lost if the plans go ahead – half of the workforce at the plant.

 

Luke Fletcher will join Rhun ap Iorwerth today on the campaign trail in Aberafan Maesteg, the constituency where the Tata Steel plant is located.

 

Plaid Cymru is also demanding that more powers over Wales’ economy and resources – including the devolution of the £835m worth Crown Estate to Wales, as part of its election campaign.

 

Plaid Cymru have advocated to retain the ability to produce primary steel in Wales and have fiercely opposed Tata’s current plans to close its blast furnaces in Port Talbot.

 

Mr Fletcher has long campaigned for the Westminster government to nationalise the Port Talbot steelworks. Failing this, the party believes that the Welsh Government should explore options for the compulsory purchase of the plant while future options for greening steel production – including through replacing coal with green hydrogen – are developed.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson for Economy and Energy, Luke Fletcher MS said:

“Wales’ economy is being held back by Westminster parties. Yet after 14 years of Tory austerity and 25 years of a Labour Welsh Government, Starmer is not offering the hopeful vision that Wales desperately needs.

“From thousands of good paying and highly skilled jobs at risk in south Wales, to Westminster’s failure to give Wales the powers we need to be in charge of our own economic destiny – we know this isn’t as good as it gets.

“Plaid Cymru has a clear vision when it comes to safeguarding these jobs through a just transition, and seeking powers over our natural resources to help Wales unlock its green potential.”

“Communities in and around Port Talbot know all too well that neither Labour nor the Tories have a plan to invigorate our economy. Neither party and their respective governments have shown any real direction when it comes to saving the thousands of jobs at risk from Tata’s decisions, nor any wider policies to support a just transition.

“Plaid Cymru’s Welsh Green New Deal sets out Plaid Cymru’s exciting vision for Wales’ green economy. Not only do we set out plans to safeguard communities in south Wales from thousands of job losses in the steel industry, but we have an ambition to create rewarding, meaningful and fair work emerging in the green and net-zero sector to build a thriving economy.

“On 4 July the people of Wales have an opportunity to elect a Plaid Cymru MP to fight for their behalf in Westminster and to demand the powers we need to unlock our potential as a country.

ENDS

DEVOLVING THE CROWN ESTATES

 

Plaid Cymru is the only party demanding that control of the Crown estates and its profits be devolved to Wales at this Westminster general election. As control of these resources could make a real difference when it comes developing sustainable green energy, green jobs and our economy bringing the change and the hope that our communties need.

The profits derived from the Crown Estate which include natural resources including tidal power, have been valued at a massive £853 million. Imagine what this could do for our communities - and yet, gains are redirected straight to the UK Treasury, with a portion handed directly to the Royal Family.

This is first and foremost an environmental issue. The devolution of powers over the management of the Crown Estate would bolster our efforts in Wales to reach net-zero through the integration of energy policy with our Net Zero Wales plan. Reinvesting profits in Wales could create thousands of well-paid green jobs, helping to address the persistent problems of low pay and job insecurity. It is also a matter of fairness. 

The Crown estate's holdings north of the border were devolved to Scotland in 2016, and its revenue now goes to the Scottish government. In Wales nothing has been done to make the Crown Estate publicly account’s to the Senedd and the Welsh people. The Crown Estate owns the UK seabed out to 12 nautical miles. 

This mens that in Scotland there is a very different system, where the Scottish government takes 100 percent of the profits generated by the Crown Estate Scotland, a separate entity. Ironically Westminster recognises that the Scottish Crown Estate should be managed by the Scottish Government and devolved those powers back in 2017. If it’s good enough for Scotland, so why not Wales?

Our energy and water resources including the responsibility for sewerage for the whole territory of Wales should be the responsibility of the Welsh Government. The Crown Estate still remains largely unaccountable to the people of Wales and all profits from its holdings (which includes on and off shore wind farms) are passed to the UK Westminster Government. 

Profits from these holdings are likely to grow significantly mostly due to the growing demand for renewable energy. For way too long our natural resources and profits from them have been run for the benefit of others with few real or lasting benefits trickling down to the people of Wales. Ownership and control over the Crown Estates in Wales should be transferred to the Welsh Government. 

The final say on how our natural resources are exploited and developed should be the direct responsibility of the Welsh people (and the Welsh Government) with 100% of the profits or dividends directly benefiting the people who live here rather than opaque absentee landlords or indifferent unaccountable Treasury officials. 

A MATTER OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Profits derived from the Crown Estate which include natural resources including tidal power, have been valued at a massive £853 million. Imagine what this could do for our communities - and yet, gains are redirected straight to the UK Treasury, with a portion handed directly to the Royal Family.

This is first and foremost an environmental issue. The devolution of powers over the management of the Crown Estate would bolster our efforts in Wales to reach net-zero through the integration of energy policy with our Net Zero Wales plan. Reinvesting profits in Wales could create thousands of well-paid green jobs, helping to address the persistent problems of low pay and job insecurity. It is also a matter of fairness. 

Plaid Cymru has long argued that it is the people of Wales who should be able to determine how best to benefit from the economic opportunity of renewable energy, not Westminster.

At present the Welsh Government has control over over agriculture, forestry and fishing, education, environment and Health and social care, but devolving The Crown Estate to Wales is something the party - and others - have long called for.

The Crown Estate is an independent company which belongs to the monarch for the duration of their reign, though the revenue from its £16 billion pound property portfolio flows directly to the Treasury.

A taxpayer-funded payment, known as the Sovereign Grant, pays for the royal family's official duties each year. It is currently set at 25% of the Crown Estate's annual profits, including a 10% uplift to pay for the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.

For decades, the seabed was simply an add on sideshow to the Crown Estates largely land based property empire. Over more recent years the sea bed’s value has soared in value, as a result of the rapidly expanding market for renewable energy. After rising incrementally for years, the value of the seabed doubled between 2020 and 2021. 

Back in 2022, the Crown Estate estimated its marine portfolio was worth £5 billion. 

Around the world, there has been a dramatic growth in ocean-based industries, with the OECD projecting that the ocean economy could exceed $3 trillion by 2030.  The UK, with its 29,000 kilometres of coastline, has been an early mover in commercialising its coastal waters beyond the traditional sectors of oil and gas, seafood, and shipping. 

The Crown Estate has facilitated and profited from much of this new activity, working in tandem with the government to rent out areas of ocean to companies that want to install offshore wind turbines, dredge up sand and gravel for the construction industry, lay cables for internet traffic and electricity, or build pipelines for oil and gas. 

The Crown Estate is also responsible for handing out the rights to store carbon—a potentially lucrative future industry. While not all the money generated by the seabed around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland funds the Royal family. 

The estate's holdings north of the border were devolved to Scotland in 2016, and its revenue now goes to the Scottish government. In Wales nothing has been done to make the Crown Estate publicly account’s to the Senedd and the Welsh people. The Crown Estate owns the UK seabed out to 12 nautical miles. 

This mens that in Scotland there is a very different system, where the Scottish government takes 100 percent of the profits generated by the Crown Estate Scotland, a separate entity. Ironically Westminster recognises that the Scottish Crown Estate should be managed by the Scottish Government and devolved those powers back in 2017. If it’s good enough for Scotland, so why not Wales?

During new Monarch’s reign, Crown Estate commissioners will make decisions that will permanently change Britain’s seabed—choosing which companies and industries get priority in an increasingly busy sea. Already, the high cost of leasing the seabed to develop offshore wind projects is shutting small companies out of the process. 

And as competition to store carbon under the sea heats up, there is a danger that the new seabed economy will look disturbingly similar to the old one, with a handful of oil and gas giants dominating and locking in a future based on fossil fuels.

The Crown Estate is in the middle of process that is turning the seabed into a major source of rental income for the Crown Estate.  Historically the Monarchy has not always claimed ownership of the seabed. When oil and gas were discovered off Britain’s east coast, companies eager to start drilling demanded clarity on whose property, exactly, they were about to bore into. 

The problem was that back in the 1940’s the then foreign secretary Herbert Morrison stated that the seabed was res nullius— literally nobody’s property—effectively creating by default a decidedly legal gray area. 

So in 1964 the government passed the Continental Shelf Act, effectively passing ownership of the UK seabed to the business managing the rest of the monarchy’s property portfolio from that point onward basically everything in the marine environment, in the absence of anyone else owning it, effectively belongs to the Crown Estate. 

It wasn’t until the turn of the millennium (under Tony Blair’s Premiership) that the Crown Estate launched what would become its most profitable seabed industry. In 2000, the first two offshore wind turbines were installed on the seabed, near the English city of Newcastle. 

Since then, the UK’s offshore wind industry has grown massively, providing almost a quarter of the country’s electricity last year, and it is now second only to China's in size. Today there are more 2,700 wind turbines off the country’s coast. The world’s biggest offshore wind farm—the size of 66,000 soccer pitches—is situated 70 miles off the coast of Yorkshire, in the northeast of England.

Encouraged by New Labour, the Crown Estate saw an opportunity in this very early on, as the Crown Estate did not simply just lease the seabed, they actually played a key role in developing the sector. Offshore seabed developments are just getting started. The UK is planning for a massive, fivefold increase in offshore wind capacity to 50 gigawatts by 2030.

So far, the Crown Estate has held four major auctions, with companies biding for the rights to build wind farms on designated sections of seabed. As the technology evolves, each auction allows wind farms to build bigger turbines that are installed farther out to sea. The offshore wind market has become so competitive that the Crown Estate is now in a position to charge companies enormous option fees—just to reserve the right to build on the seabed.

Back in 2019, a partnership between BP and German energy provider ENBW agreed to pay £231 million ($290 million) in annual option fees alone. As the offshore wind industry booms, the Crown Estate is already eyeing the next opportunity to cash in on its seabed empire: carbon storage. 

The seabed around the UK has room to store 78 billion tons of carbon dioxide—more than enough space to cram in 200 years' worth of the country’s annual emissions. Increasingly, the North Sea is being seen as a destination to store carbon captured from hard-to-decarbonize industries, including steel, cement, and fertilizer production.

Although it’s still the heart of the UK’s fossil fuel industry, the North Sea will play an important part in the country’s decarbonization plans. In 2019 the Committee on Climate Change—a public body that advises the government—concluded that carbon capture and storage is a “necessity, not an option” if the UK is going to achieve its legally binding goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

So far carbon storage plans have had a rocky start, in 2011 and 2015 the Westminster government canceled major carbon capture and storage projects, attracting criticism from those who say the UK has been slow to capitalise on its natural storage assets. That is starting to change.

The UK has set itself the target of capturing up to 30 million tons of carbon dioxide every year by 2030, with the first carbon capture clusters centering around industrial towns and cities in the northeast and northwest of England.

What this means is that the Crown Estate is now sitting on another valuable asset deep beneath the sea. The estate is responsible for granting the rights for carbon storage under the seabed around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as leases for pipelines that would transfer carbon dioxide to these underground stores, most of which are located in the North Sea. 

Storage licenses are approved by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), a public body that regulates the oil, gas, and carbon storage industries in the North Sea.

So far, the NTSA has granted seven licenses for seabed carbon storage around England. 

One of those licenses—granted in 2013 to Shell—has expired, so there are now six active carbon storage licenses, covering five sites in the North Sea and one in the Irish Sea to the west of England. In September 2022, the NSTA closed bidding on the first public round of carbon storage licensing after receiving bids from 19 companies for the 13 carbon storage sites offered up. 

Any company that wants to transport and store carbon under the sea will also need to purchase rights from the Crown Estate. So far only one project holds an agreement for lease from the Crown Estate: a chunk of the North Sea being explored by a partnership between BP, Carbon Sentinel, and Equinor New Energy for its carbon storage potential.

The seabed is now facing a massive moment of transition, with vast potential to support nature recovery, unlock huge opportunity for renewable energy, and play a major role in energy security means it is becoming increasingly busy, with more demands on it than ever before. These demands are only set to grow in intensity in the future and the profits are only going to grow. 

As with offshore wind farms, this raises the question of who gets to cash in on the race to net zero. Of the six active carbon storage licenses granted on the UK continental shelf, five of them are owned by oil and gas companies. 

Freedom of information requests which were put in to NSTA has revealed that prior to September 2022, there had only been nine applications for offshore carbon storage licenses. So basically pretty much every single carbon storage application was successful, and all but one of those licenses went to an oil or gas company.

None of this should really surprise anyone as storing carbon under the sea will mean drilling wells hundreds of meters under the seabed, exactly the kind of thing that oil and gas companies have been doing in the North Sea for decades. 

These companies have another incentive to encourage carbon capture and storage: If the technology is used as a way to reduce emissions from fossil fuels, then it could be used to justify continued drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. The NSTA has already licensed new areas for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, a move decried by some campaign groups as illegal.

The transition to a lower-carbon economy means finding new uses for the ocean, but there are still serious questions over the impact that marine industries have on the seabed, and about which companies will profit from this new undersea boom. 

In the Pacific, mining firms are currently exploring the seabed for polymetallic nodules packed with metals that are essential for manufacturing electric cars. Starting in July 2023, the International Seabed Authority will start taking applications from companies that wish to mine the ocean floor. 

A whole new era of ocean exploitation beckons—this time in the name of limiting carbon emissions and adapting to climate change. For years, the ocean has suffered as a result of human activity. Marine heat waves have prompted coral bleaching, microplastics are messing with ocean food chains, and falling underwater oxygen levels mean marine animals are finding it harder to breathe. 

Human impact on the ocean ecosystem has not been good, regulation and review of offshore activity during the on going gold rush to cash in and exploit the seabed threatens to repeat the mistakes that we have made on land, particularly if much of the development is undertaken by companies whose environmental record is not good. 

The revenues do not belong to the monarch and surplus revenue from its businesses are paid each year to the Treasury. The Crown Estates revenues in Cymru / Wales are not vast at the moment, but, the assets have what could best be described as game changing potential. 

That's why control of these marine and and coastal assets particularly in the case of renewables and off shore wind generated hydrogen could our nation to opportunity to reboot our economy and make a significant contribution to fighting global climate change.

Our energy and water resources including the responsibility for sewerage for the whole territory of Wales should be the responsibility of the Welsh Government. The Crown Estate still remains largely unaccountable to the people of Wales and all profits from its holdings (which includes on and off shore wind farms) are passed to the UK Westminster Government. Profits from these holdings are likely to grow significantly mostly due to the growing demand for renewable energy. 

For way too long our natural resources have been run for the benefit of others with few real or lasting benefits trickling down to the people of Wales. Ownership and control over the Crown Estates in Wales should be transferred to the Welsh Government. 

The final say on how our natural resources are exploited and developed should be the direct responsibility of the Welsh people (and the Welsh Government) with 100% of the profits or dividends directly benefiting the people who live here rather than opaque absentee landlords or indifferent unaccountable Treasury officials.