Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in each year from 1999 to 2024, what directions have been given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the relevant Secretary of State, to the Crown Estate Commissioners under section 1 of the Crown Estate Act 1961.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Section 1 of the Crown Estate Act 1961 provides that the Chancellor of the Exchequer may direct the Commissioners as to the discharge of their functions under the Act, but in doing so must have regard to the general statutory duties of the Commissioners.
Neither the Treasury nor The Crown Estate have any known record of the power of direction in section 1 of the Crown Estate Act 1961 being used since the 1961 Act came into force.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to re-allocate to the Welsh Government the £400 million accumulated End Year Flexibility fund consolidated out of revenue underspend between 2007 and 2011.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The End Year Flexibility fund was replaced by the Budget Exchange mechanism in 2011. For the Welsh Government, this was then replaced by the Wales Reserve in 2016 to continue to allow Welsh Government to move funding between years. The Wales Reserve limit is £350 million.
Underspends that the Welsh Government are unable to manage within the Wales Reserve are returned to the Exchequer, as set out in the Consolidated Budgeting Guidance.
The Welsh Government receives around 20% more funding per person than equivalent UK Government spending in England. That translates to £3.5 billion more per year on average for the Welsh Government. It is for the Welsh Government to allocate their funding in devolved areas as they see fit.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many of the current Crown Estate Commissioners live in Wales.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Crown Estate Commissioners are a public appointment made by The King on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. All Commissioner appointments are governed by the Code for Public Appointments.
As of October 2024, none of the current Commissioners declare a primary residence in Wales.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much money private citizens paid to the Crown Estates in relation to their use of assets located in Wales in the financial year 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Land owned in the UK by private companies is leased at market rates. The Crown Estate is an organisation that operates in the market, competing directly with the private sector, and as such their land is leased at market rates.
The Crown Estate total revenue of private leases of assets located in Wales for the financial year 2023/24 was £58,721.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much money the government of Wales paid to the Crown Estates in the financial year 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Land owned in the UK by private companies is leased at market rates. The Crown Estate is an organisation that operates in the market, competing directly with the private sector, and as such their land is leased at market rates.
The Crown Estate received £2,826 total revenue from Welsh Government for the financial year 2023-24.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much money each of the 22 counties of Wales paid to the Crown Estates in the financial year 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Crown Estate operates as an independent and unified commercial entity, engaging in a variety of business activities across Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
To achieve efficiency in its operations, The Crown Estate runs many of its functions at a whole enterprise level. Reflective of this whole enterprise approach, The Crown Estate runs a single set of accounts across its functions, which are not disaggregated according to administrative areas, local authorities or counties. Extracting the relevant information from the existing accounts into a bespoke format to align with the request for 22 counties of Wales would exceed the disproportionate cost threshold for Written Parliamentary Questions.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much money Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water paid to the Crown Estates in relation to their activities in (1) Wales, and (2) England in the financial year 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises there is a public interest in transparency in relation to how public money is managed. However, in this case, disclosure of information would be likely to prejudice The Crown Estate’s position in relation to future business negotiations with other water companies.
If The Crown Estate is unable to obtain best value, this could have a detrimental effect on the amount of money The Crown Estate returns to the public purse. On that basis, the Government believes the public interest weights in favour of withholding this information at this point in time.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much money each of the national parks in Wales paid to the Crown Estates in the financial year 2023–24.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Land owned in the UK by private companies is leased at market rates. The Crown Estate is an organisation that operates in the market, competing directly with the private sector, and as such their land is leased at market rates.
The revenue to The Crown Estate from leases of National Parks for Wales for the financial year 2023/24 is £21,304 from Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much each Government department has under-spent against their (1) capital, and (2) current expenditure, budgets.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Resource and Capital Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) are published in Supplementary Estimates towards the end of each financial year. Treasury then publishes final outturn figures for Resource and Capital DEL usually in July.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the most recent figures for the volume of trade between Holyhead and the Republic of Ireland; and how these compare with corresponding figures in 2015.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The volume of trade between Holyhead and the Republic of Ireland from 2021 to 2024 is as follows:
Table1: Republic of Ireland trade with Holyhead port, imports and exports trade value and net mass (2021-2024)
Exports to Ireland | Imports from Ireland | ||||
Statistical Value (£) | Net Mass (kg) | Statistical Value (£) | Net Mass (kg) | ||
Holyhead | |||||
2021(1) | 5,914,018,273 | 742,755,135 | - | - | |
2022 | 8,710,696,860 | 836,776,181 | 6,219,013,646 | 675,794,695 | |
2023 | 9,197,743,475 | 943,345,494 | 7,685,784,587 | 811,262,695 | |
2024(2) | 1,983,688,480 | 247,346,818 | 2,094,184,476 | 262,110,514 | |
25,806,147,088 | 2,770,223,628 | 15,998,982,709 | 1,749,167,904 | ||
Data Source: HMRC, Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics | |||||
(1) HMRC does not have data for 2021 imports as Staged Customs Controls (SCC) allowed an extended period for traders to complete their declarations. During this period HMRC continued to source intra-EU data from Intrastat declarations. (2) 2024 only contains data relating to January, February, and March. | |||||
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) does not have port data prior to 2021 as the UK was part of the European Union and customs declarations were not required for these movements. Trade data for intra-EU movements was collected via monthly Intrastat declarations which did not collect information on ports.
Also, HMRC does not have data for 2021 imports as Staged Customs Controls (SCC) allowed an extended period for traders to complete their declarations. During this period HMRC continued to source intra-EU data from Intrastat declarations.