Crown Estate Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Melanie Onn and Jayne Kirkham

Committee stage
Thursday 6th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Melanie Onn]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss, and to speak to this amendment. Its intention relates to the additional funds that the Crown Estate will be able to unlock—something I welcome to improve investment in the country, rather than it being tied up by coming back into the Treasury to then be redistributed. It aims to ensure that there is an arrangement for funding from the Crown Estate, in projects and activities that it is already engaged in, to support the local regions where those are taking place.

It does not seem to me unreasonable that consider- ation should be given, as part of the Crown Estate’s considerations, to the UK’s net zero targets, as is expected of other organisations. Net zero is one of Government’s key missions, so to have some sympathy and some similarity in the way that organisations are expected to conduct themselves in relation to their overall objectives seems straightforward.

The amendment also adds the gentlest of additional check-ins for the Crown Estate to ensure that those wider community benefits that have the opportunity to generate lasting change in coastal communities are part of the Crown Estate’s considerations. There are so many benefits from this Bill—it is very welcome for that reason—and they should be specifically included.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Crown Estate, until now, has made decisions on the leasing of the seabed based mainly on price and cost and nothing else. This Bill will change that by asking commissioners to “keep under review the impact of their activities on…sustainable development”.

Amendment 1 simply clarifies “sustainable development” and slightly expands on what that means for, for example, net zero targets and economic growth. I ask the Minister to consider that and to assure us that that is what the Bill is intended to do, and that it will be the progress and direction of the Crown Estate.