New Welsh adviser for Royal landowner Crown Estate

The Crown Estate will appoint a Welsh representative "to ensure Wales benefits" from future offshore energy projects, the UK government has announced.

Owned by the monarch, and helping to fund the Royal Family, the Crown Estate owns more than £603m of land in Wales, including 65% of the seabed around the Welsh coastline.

In Scotland the proceeds of the Crown Estate are given to the Scottish government, but not in Wales, and there have been calls to change that.

As part of a deal agreed by Jo Stevens, the Welsh Secretary, a commissioner to represent Wales will be appointed to the Crown Estate.

The Wales Office said the commissioner will be responsible for "providing advice on the operation of the Crown Estate in Wales, ensuring its voice is heard".

The Crown Estate is expected to benefit considerably from the drive to green energy with the development of significant offshore wind projects, particularly Floating Offshore Wind projects in the Celtic Sea.

The changes to the Crown Estate are being made as part of an amendment by Lord Peter Hain to the Crown Estates Bill, which is in its report stage at the moment.

The amendment has cross-party support from Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Plaid Cymru has welcomed the amendment, but said it does not go far enough.

Carmen Smith, the Plaid peer, said her party wants the Crown Estate fully devolved to Wales and for it to need to seek consent from the Welsh government before exercising any powers in Wales.

"We believe that profits generated from the Welsh Crown Estate should be invested directly in Welsh communities – not diverted to Westminster," she said.

Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said the UK government's announcement was a "landmark step toward ensuring that Welsh prosperity is at the heart of the government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower".

"Our nation stands to benefit hugely from investment in floating offshore wind and we now have the representation we need to help seize that moment," she said.

For Baroness Christine Humphreys, Liberal Democrat Wales spokesperson in the House of Lords, it was a "welcome step in the right direction" but "still falls short of giving Wales the same legal structures, accountability, and control of financial levers that Scotland has over the Crown Estate".

Analysis by BBC Wales political editor Gareth Lewis

The row over devolution of the Crown Estate is something Welsh political parties feel they can profit from.

Labour is keen to stress that Wales now has a voice around the table for the first time, although only time will tell how much that voice is listened to.

Plaid Cymru is adopting a pragmatic approach that this is better than nothing, but it won’t stop the party from demanding full devolution, or pointing out that Welsh Labour – if not UK Labour – backs that too.

The 2026 Senedd election is looming and with polling suggesting that Plaid is pushing Labour hard, Labour ministers in Westminster and Cardiff Bay need something to show for two governments working together.

Whilst not an issue in its own right that regularly comes up on the doorstep, it could form part of a wider argument around funding for Wales, and whether that funding is fair.