Memorandum from The Crown Estate
1. THE CROWN
ESTATE
1.1 The Crown Estate owns around 55% of
the UK foreshore and virtually the entire seabed out to the 12
nautical mile (nm) territorial limit, including the rights to
explore and utilize the natural resources of the UK Continental
Shelf (excluding oil, gas and coal). The Crown Estate Act (1961)
sets out the general duty to maintain The Crown Estate as an estate
in land and "to maintain and enhance its value and the return
obtained from it, but with due regard to the requirements of good
management".
1.2 The Crown Estate thus has a primary
obligation to seek a financial return from the land under its
management. But it also has to take account of non-financial issues
which are relevant to good land management. Stemming from the
statutory obligation as to good management, The Crown Estate sees
itself as having a stewardship role as well as a purely commercial
one. A particular focus of its stewardship today is on the conservation
and sustainable development of the marine environment.
1.3 Even though The Crown Estate's ownership
ends at the territorial limit certain sovereign rights of the
United Kingdom outside territorial waters are exercised through
The Crown Estate:
— by section 1 of the Continental Shelf
Act 1964, any rights exercisable by the UK outside territorial
waters with respect to the seabed and subsoil and their natural
resources [except for hydrocarbons]
— the Energy Act 2004 vested rights
to The Crown Estate to licence the generation of renewable energy
on the continental shelf within the Renewable Energy Zone out
to 200nm.
1.4 The Crown Estate has two main objectives:
to benefit the taxpayer by paying the revenue from assets directly
to the Exchequer; and to enhance the value of the estate and the
income it generates. These activities are supported by the core
values of commercialism, integrity and stewardship.
1.5 As a landowner The Crown Estate issues
leases, licences and consents for a range of activities. The Crown
Estate is not a regulator; the planning and consenting process
is the responsibility of Government.
1.6 The coastal estate is varied and dealings
include ports, marinas and moorings, wildfowling and fish farming.
The general practice is to grant leases or licences for works
and activities that affect these sites; there are currently over
2,000 legal agreements around the UK coast. Some 21% of foreshore
is leased specifically for conservation purposes. A great deal
more of the coastline is under protective leases to local authorities.
Offshore, leases of easement for cables and pipelines and royalties
from the extraction of minerals, principally marine aggregates,
are the main sources of revenue (£22.9 million) from the
marine estate (£36.9 million). In addition, intrusive activities
on the seabed such as pre-construction ground investigation work,
flood defence works, dumping of material inside the 12nm limit,
deployment of navigation buoys and fixed oceanographic equipment,
metal detecting on the foreshore, some environmental survey work,
eg grab sampling, coring and boreholes all require The Crown Estate's
permission.
2. CONSULTATION
DOCUMENT AND
PROCESS
2.1 The Crown Estate is a member of the
Marine Bill Steering Group (established in September 2005) alongside
Government Departments.
2.2 This response presents our views on
the general themes within the draft consultation paper and the
consultation process.
2.3 The Crown Estate believes that the 5
themes identified within the draft consultation for the Marine
Bill are the key components required to deliver improvements to
the UK regulatory framework and marine environmental protection.
The commitment to sustainable development is welcomed. Even though
we appreciate the level of work that has gone into producing the
draft we consider that much more detail is required to support
the principle options set out and to indicate how integration
will be achieved. We feel the consultation is lacking in clarity
as to whether the Marine Bill will provide high level enabling
legislation or whether the intention is for some aspects to be
delivered through secondary legislation; we expect to see an indication
in the next round of consultation as to the elements of primary
legislation and enabling powers. In addition issues surrounding
devolved administrations remain. The areas we feel were lacking
in detail are as follows:
(i) It would have been useful for consultees
to have been provided with a schedule of all of the remaining
stages of the entire Marine Bill consultation process, particularly
now that the programme of work appears to have slipped from its
original timetable.
(ii) A number of stakeholder meetings were
convened and were well attended however the purpose of the electronic
voting that was used to ascertain views on specific issues at
the three Marine Bill Forums is unclear.
(iii) The Crown Estate has participated in
the Marine Bill Steering Group but we feel that better use could
have been made of the expertise within this group in keeping with
the Terms of Reference, especially in relation to the consultation
process. The details set out in the Programme Initiation Document
included the option for the establishment of a stakeholder advisory
group but it is not clear how this was taken forward (except for
the stakeholder meetings that were held prior to, and during the
consultation phase).
(iv) The Crown Estate is aware of considerable
ongoing background work in connection with some of the policy
themes within the consultation documentation and proposed Bill.
However, it is not clear how the outcomes and deliverable from
this additional work will be peer and quality reviewed, subjected
to consultation and then incorporated into the next drafting of
the Marine Bill.
(v) Whilst the underlying principles of sustainable
development are very much welcomed by The Crown Estate (given
its role), there is little evidence that the economic and social
objectives are being addressed. There has obviously been concentrated
effort on environmental protection and marine conservation issues
(marine ecological objectives) but the associated sustainable
development principles have received less attention.
(vi) The consultation excludes Fishing as
an activity, despite its very significant role in and impact on
the marine environment. Whilst cogent arguments for excluding
Fishing from the consultation are presented in the documentation,
it is clear that substantive changes in fisheries management reform
require very extensive preparatory work and new legislation. It
is not clear that this preparatory work can be achieved in the
same timescale as that required for the other Marine Bill themes
and hence gives rise to uncertainties as to whether Fisheries
will actually be included in the draft Bill. A Marine Bill which
did not address control of Fisheries, and its consideration within
any spatial planning framework would be very incomplete.
(vii) As a UK-wide body, The Crown Estate
recognizes the importance of a UK-wide approach to the use and
protection of the marine environment. The current consultation
document fails to address the complex devolution issues and the
need for consistency in delivery. We recognize the complexities
and the considerable amount of work necessary to determine how
policy for the proposed Bill could operate in devolved administrations
but consider that much more detailed work should have been carried
out prior to publication of the consultation document.
3. CONCLUSION
We recognize that Government has set itself
an extremely challenging task to deliver a Marine Bill and we
welcome the opportunity to explore the potential to improve management
of the UK's seas and coastal areas through integrated and streamlined
planning. We welcome the indication that sustainable development
should be the defining principle for the policy framework but
overall, The Crown Estate believes that any Marine Bill requires
much more background work across Government and the devolved administrations
before "an effective and coherent Marine Bill" could
be presented to Parliament. Addressing these fundamental issues
is crucial to achieve the desired sustainable development outcomes
and benefits of the Marine Bill.
June 2006
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