Crown Estate Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Humphreys and Lord Murphy of Torfaen

Report stage
Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 6 in my name and Amendment 11 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, for signing my amendment. We debated a similar amendment in Committee, where those of us who argued for the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales made strong arguments in favour of it. Other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and the noble Baroness, also presented strong cases for their amendments on the transference of the management of the Crown Estate in Wales to the Welsh Government, on separate reporting within the annual accounts of the activities of the Crown Estate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and on other issues. I thank both noble Lords for their commitment to this issue.

Public opinion in Wales is behind the devolution of the Crown Estate, with a YouGov poll last year showing that 58% of the people of Wales support such a move. Senedd Cymru has supported its devolution, as have the majority of political parties in Wales, including my party—the Welsh Liberal Democrats and our federal party. I was encouraged this week to find that, in their response to the final report of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, the Welsh Labour Government said:

“Our longstanding position is that the Crown Estate should be devolved to Wales in line with the position in Scotland”.


That being so, I am disappointed that the Welsh Government were not consulted when this Bill was being prepared.

There are frustrations in Wales, as Scotland is seen to be benefiting from the devolution of Crown Estate powers to the Scottish Parliament, not only through the receipts paid to it but in the control, power and influence that Scotland has over the use of its resources. Scotland appears to move on while Wales lags behind. For us, the process of devolution appears to have come to a stop. There are real concerns that, by the time Wales has control over the Crown Estate, much of the wealth will already have been extracted.

As we appear to have reached something of an impasse, the way forward might be to follow the process followed by the Scottish Affairs Committee in the other place in the lead-up to the devolution of the Crown Estate there. It published a number of reports, one of which in 2014 identified issues in the management of the Crown Estate’s responsibility, particularly in relation to the seabed and foreshore. It looked at issues including

“accountability and transparency … communication and consultation with local communities … cash leakage from local economies … arising from the way the CEC operates … The evidence did not identify such problems with the CEC’s management of its urban and rural estate”,

only those relating to the seabed and foreshore.

We would therefore welcome any decision of the Welsh Affairs Committee to initiate an inquiry to determine if similar problems apply to Wales. It is not of course our place in this Chamber to call for that, but an evidence-taking committee of inquiry would provide the evidence to move this issue forward and address any lessons learned since the devolution of the Crown Estate to Scotland.

As I said in Committee, my amendment does not call for a timescale for the devolution of the Crown Estate to the Welsh Government, because I accept that this will not be completed overnight. However, I am also disappointed that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, which the Minister has signed, does not lay any foundation or route map for the transference of powers to Wales. Because of this, I am minded to seek the opinion of the House on my Amendment 6.

I want to make a couple of comments on Amendment 11, but as the noble Lord has not had the opportunity to speak to his amendment yet, my comments will be brief. I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling his amendment and recognise the time and the cross-party work he put into its preparation—I know it was no easy feat. I am also grateful to the Minister, who has signed Amendment 11. This represents a major change in his stance since Second Reading and Committee of the Bill, and I also acknowledge how difficult this process must have been for him as Treasury Minister.

However, this major change in the Minister’s stance will be seen as the smallest, most insignificant step for those advocating the devolution of the Crown Estate to Wales. Amendment 11 calls for three commissioners to be appointed, one each to represent England, Wales and Northern Ireland and to be

“responsible for giving advice about”

their respective nations.

I have two questions, which I hope the noble Lord or the Minister will be able to address. First, proposed sub-paragraph (3C) refers to

“the giving of advice to the Commissioners about conditions in that part so far as relating to their functions in relation to land there”.

I assume that the use of the word “land” excludes the giving of advice about the more lucrative foreshore and seabed. If it does exclude the foreshore and the seabed, why are they not included?

Secondly, in a nod to devolution, in sub-paragraph (4B) Welsh Ministers are to be “consulted” about the commissioner for Wales before the recommendation is made to His Majesty. Can the Minister confirm that “consulted” means that Welsh Ministers are to take no part in the actual appointment of the commissioner for Wales?

I am seeking more for Wales than Amendment 11 provides. With the devolution of the Crown Estate, we could see an economic boost built on the success of renewable projects around our coastline, reviving coastal communities and ensuring the benefits from these projects are actually felt by those living near them in Wales. I beg to move.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to move Amendment 11 on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hain, who cannot be with us this afternoon. I was present in Committee on the Bill and listened with great interest to noble Lords discussing the issue of devolving the Crown Estate to Wales. I had a great deal of sympathy with the points that were made. I believe it is incongruous that it has already been devolved to Scotland but is not devolved to Wales or Northern Ireland. I speak as someone who was Secretary of State for both Wales and Northern Ireland. Therefore, I welcome the amendment tabled by my noble friend, in so far that it means that there will be commissioners specifically responsible for giving advice to the Crown Estate itself on behalf of Wales and Northern Ireland—which is very good.

I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about consultation, but it is pretty clear to me that it would be a very foolish Government to appoint commissioners who were not approved by the First Minister in Cardiff and the First and Deputy First Ministers in Belfast. It is a start, though it is not exactly everything that was wanted. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, that my noble friend the Financial Secretary has indeed moved his stance to one which would be agreed to by lots of people in Wales, and I guess in Northern Ireland.

We are living in different times; we now have a Labour Government in Cardiff and in Whitehall. I believe it is important that Governments can get together and talk about these issues in a very special way. That is why this amendment is before us this afternoon: exactly because there have been proper discussions, which I guess the Secretary of State for Wales has also been involved in. Personally, I do not think it goes far enough, but as I said, it is a start.

In the new regime—in this new Britain since the general election—there is a very serious case to be made for a much better relationship between the devolved Administrations and the United Kingdom Government. We have a new Council of the Nations and Regions, which will do a great deal of good for that relationship. We have a situation in Northern Ireland where we now have the Executive up and running, at last, and I congratulate the previous Government on the work they did on that. In this new era, where devolution means something very different from what it has meant over the last number of years, we have to believe that this new relationship will result in decisions such as this one.

I hope that this is not the end of the discussions between the Treasury, the Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive; I hope it is the beginning of discussions on these issues, not just on this one, but on other ones as well. In my personal view, I hope that, ultimately, the Crown Estate should be devolved. However, we are where we are: the Government have made a concession, the Financial Secretary has very kindly signed my noble friend’s amendment, and I very much look forward to what he has to say in the course of this important debate.

Government of Wales Act 2006 (Devolved Welsh Authorities) (Amendment) Order 2024

Debate between Baroness Humphreys and Lord Murphy of Torfaen

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the Minister’s reference to yesterday’s train crash in Llanbrynmair and add my condolences to the family concerned.

This order removes the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales—HEFCW—from the list of devolved Welsh authorities in Schedule 9A to the Government of Wales Act 2006 and replaces it with the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, or Comisiwn Addysg Drydyddol ac Ymchwil. However, this is much more than a change of name. The commission, which was set up by the Welsh Senedd in its Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022, operates at arm’s length from the Welsh Government but is answerable to them. Its board operates within a strategic planning and funding framework established by Welsh Ministers and is responsible for funding and regulating all areas of post-16 education in Wales, including further education, higher education, apprenticeships, school sixth forms, adult community learning, and government-funded research and innovation. It therefore takes over the responsibilities of HEFCW, but much more in addition, as that list shows.

HEFCW, as it is almost affectionately called, has been so much a part of the Welsh education system and our educational vocabulary since 1992, when it was established, that it will be strange to think of the sector without the name in future. I am pleased that the commission has been given a more user-friendly name than its official title and will be known as Medr, the Welsh word for skill or ability, which seems absolutely appropriate. The official title appears below the Medr heading on its website and letterheads, so it will not be lost.

The board, which provides the strategic leadership, consists of 17 members appointed by the Welsh Government and includes four non-voting associate members representing learners and the education workforce. They all have an important task ahead of them as they navigate the new tertiary landscape in Wales, and I wish them every success in the future. On behalf of the Lib Dem Benches, I support the aims of this statutory instrument.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the sentiments of the Minister regarding the dreadful accident in mid Wales. I also pay tribute to her in her new role and wish her well in it. It is quite an extensive role. It covers not just Wales but Northern Ireland, Scotland and lots of other things as well, but those are the three things that matter most.

I shall speak briefly about this order, which I support. It is a technical order in many ways, but it gives the Committee the opportunity to touch upon the points, as the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, just did. The commission is a brand-new body that takes into account further education and technical education. Before I entered the House of Commons in 1987, I spent 17 years teaching in Welsh further education in Ebbw Vale. I always thought that the distinction and differences between technical, further and higher education were very artificial. Eventually, as the years went on, that became quite obvious, so this is a natural progression in how the Welsh Government and the Senedd deal with post-16 education in Wales. I welcome that as well.

This order gives us an opportunity to mention briefly the issue that the Minister has been raising for some time: the importance of co-operation between the Government in Cardiff and the Government here in London. That is particularly significant on this issue because roughly 50% of students in Welsh universities come from outside Wales and roughly 50% of Welsh students go outside Wales to study, so there is a constant interchange between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. and beyond, for example, in America, where it is important for good co-operation. I hope that our Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson, and the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle—she is my Member of the Senedd—will be in constant communication, talking to each other about the importance of higher education and further education in both countries. I also hope that the Minister will take that message back.

The other point that I want to touch on concerns something that I was involved in about 14 years ago. At that time, the Welsh Government asked me to look at opportunities for Welsh students to go to Oxford and Cambridge, Russell group universities and, beyond that, Harvard or Yale, as some have done from Welsh schools. Incidentally, some of those students were from very deprived Welsh schools. That project became known as Seren in Wales. It is a system by which students in Wales can get access to opportunities to learn about different universities. In my view, it has been a considerable success, but it is also a good example of how the English education system could learn from what we do in Wales with regard to ensuring that people whose backgrounds mean that they would not normally expect to go to our top universities in England, Wales and elsewhere can do so. There is an opportunity for co-operation there as well.

I wish the new body and the new Government here in Whitehall good luck. I also wish good luck to the co-operation between the Welsh Government and the United Kingdom.