| The Crown Estate | |
|---|---|
| Statutory corporation overview | |
| Formed | 1961 |
| Jurisdiction | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters | 16 New Burlington Place, London, W1S 2HX |
| Employees | 397 |
| Statutory corporation executive | Sir Stuart Hampson, Chairman |
| Website | |
| www.thecrownestate.co.uk | |
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong to the monarch personally (as each monarch, upon accession, surrenders the surplus revenues in return for an annual grant). It is managed by an independent organisation headed by the Crown Estate Commissioners. The surplus revenue from the Estate is paid each year to HM Treasury. The Crown Estate is formally accountable to Parliament, to which it makes an annual report.[1]
The Crown Estate is one of the largest property owners in the United Kingdom with a portfolio worth £7.0 billion, with urban properties valued at £5.179 billion, and rural holdings valued at £1.049 billion; and an annual profit of £230.9 million, as at 31 March 2011.[2] The majority of the estate by value is urban, including a large number of properties in central London, but the estate also owns 144,000 ha (356,000 ac) of agricultural land and forest,[3] more than half of the UK's foreshore, and retains various other traditional holdings and rights, for example Ascot racecourse and Windsor Great Park.
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The history of the Crown lands in England begins with the Norman conquest.[1] The period between the reigns of William I and Queen Anne was one of continuous alienation of lands.[4] When William I died, the land he had acquired by right of conquest was still largely intact.[5] His successors, however, granted large estates to the nobles and barons who supplied them with men and arms.[6] The Crown lands were augmented as well as depleted over the centuries: Edward I extended his possessions into Wales, and James VI & I had his own Crown lands in Scotland which were ultimately combined with the Crown lands of England and Wales.[7] However, the disposals outweighed the acquisitions: at the time of the Restoration in 1660, the total revenue arising from Crown lands was estimated to be £263,598 (equal to £29,423,895 today).[8] By the end of the reign of William III (1689–1702), however, it was reduced to some £6,000 (equal to £906,403 today).[9]
Before the reign of William III all the revenues of the kingdom were bestowed on the monarch for the general expenses of government. These revenues were of two kinds:[10]
After the Glorious Revolution, Parliament retained under its own control the greater part of the temporary revenues, and relieved the sovereign of the cost of the naval and military services and the burden of the national debt. During the reigns of William III, Anne, George I and George II the sovereign remained responsible for the maintenance of the civil government and for the support of the royal household and dignity, being allowed for these purposes the hereditary revenues and certain taxes.[10]
As the state machinery expanded, the cost of the civil government exceeded the income from the Crown lands and feudal rights: this created a personal debt for the monarch.
On George III's accession he surrendered the income from the Crown lands to parliament, together with abrogating responsibility for the cost of the civil government and the clearance of associated debts. As a result, and in order to avoid pecuniary embarrassment, he was granted a fixed civil list payment and the income retained from the Duchy of Lancaster.[11] The King surrendered to parliamentary control the hereditary excise duties, post office revenues, and "the small branches" of hereditary revenue including rents of the Crown lands in England, (which amounted to about £11,000, or £1,602,331 today) and was granted a civil list annuity of £800,000 (equal to £116,533,174 today) for the support of his household, subject to the payment of certain annuities to members of the royal family.[11]
Although the King had retained large hereditary revenues, his income proved insufficient for his charged expenses because he used the privilege to reward supporters with bribes and gifts.[12] Debts amounting to over £3 million (equal to £200,886,522 today) over the course of George's reign were paid by parliament, and the civil list annuity was then increased from time to time.[13]
Every succeeding sovereign has renewed the arrangement made between George III and parliament and the practice has, since the nineteenth century, been recognised as "an integral part of the Constitution [which] would be difficult to abandon",[10][14] especially as resuming control of the income from the Crown Estate would cause the monarch to be liable for the cost of the civil government, civil and diplomatic services.
In 1793 George III surrendered the hereditary revenues of Ireland, and was granted a civil list annuity for certain expenses of Irish civil government.[11]
As in Scotland, the Crown lands in Ireland comprised a miscellany of feudal dues, land acquired for forts, and forfeitures especially after 1688. In the early 1830s the Crown Estate resumed possession of land in Ballykilcline following the insanity of the head lessee. The occupational sub-lessees were seven years in arrear with their rent and the result was the Ballykilcline "removals" – free emigration to the new world in 1846. There is evidence of Crown Estate public work schemes to employ the more distressed in improving drainage etc.[15] In 1854 a select committee of the House of Lords concluded that the small estates in Ireland should be sold.[16] 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) were subsequently sold for circa. £25,000 (equal to £1,719,359 today) at auction and £10,000 (equal to £687,744 today) by private treaty: a major disinvestment, with reinvestment in Great Britain.[9]
From 1 April 1923, as regards the Irish Free State, Irish land revenues have been collected and administered by the Irish government. At the time of handover to the Irish Free State, quit rents totalled £23,418 (equal to £990,143 today) and rent from property £1,191 (equal to £50,357 today).[9] The estates handed over mostly comprised foreshore.[17]
The hereditary land revenues of the Crown in Scotland, formerly under the management of the Barons of the Exchequer, were transferred to the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, Land Revenues, Works and Buildings and their successors under the Crown Lands (Scotland) Acts of 1832, 1833 and 1835.[18] These holdings mainly comprised former ecclesiastical land (following the abolition of the episcopacy in 1689) in Caithness and Orkney, and ancient royal possession in Stirling and Edinburgh, and feudal dues.[17] There was virtually no urban property. Most of the present Scottish estate excepting foreshore and salmon fishing is due to inward investment, including Glenlivet Estate, the largest area of land managed by the Crown Estate in Scotland, purchased in 1937,[19] Applegirth, Fochabers and Whitehill estates, purchased in 1963, 1937 and 1969 respectively.[20]
After winning the 2011 Scottish election, the Scottish National Party (SNP) called for the devolution of the Crown Estate income to Scotland.[21] In response to this demand, the UK Government has developed plans to allocate some of the Crown Estate income to the Big Lottery Fund, which would then distribute funds to coastal communities.[21] These plans have also been criticised by the SNP.[21]
Previous officials responsible for managing what is now the Crown Estate were:[22]
Chairmen (First Commissioner)
Chief executives (Second Commissioner)
The chairman (formally titled "first commissioner") is part-time. The chief executive (the "second commissioner") is the only full-time executive member of the Crown Estate's board.[23]
The Crown Estate now is a statutory corporation run on commercial lines by the Crown Estate Commissioners under the provisions of the Crown Estate Act 1961. Under the Crown Estate Act 1961 the Crown Estate Commissioners have a duty "while maintaining the Crown Estate as an estate in land [...] to maintain and enhance its value and the return obtained from it, but with due regard to the requirements of good management".[24] The Act provides among other things that (Section 1(5)) "The validity of transactions entered into by the Commissioners shall not be called in question on any suggestion of their not having acted in accordance with the provisions of this Act regulating the exercise of their powers, or of their having otherwise acted in excess of their authority, nor shall any person dealing with the Commissioners be concerned to inquire as to the extent of their authority or the observance of any restrictions on the exercise of their powers".
Summary of the Act[25]
In 2010 a UK Parliament Treasury Committee report on the Crown Estate, the first for 20 years, reported that
Crown Estate chief executive Roger Bright said: “We welcome the Committee’s recognition that we run a successful business operation.”[26]
Windsor Estate
The Windsor Estate consists of:
| Commercial and residential | Offices, retail and hotel | 250 hectares |
| Leisure | Golf clubs/Ascot Racecourse | 250 hectares |
| Agriculture | Farms | 1,200 hectares |
| Parkland | Home Park/Great Park | 1,600 hectares |
| Forestry | Woodland areas | 3,100 hectares |
Marine Estate
The Marine estate consists of:
| Foreshore | Approximately 55% of the UK's foreshore is owned by the Crown Estate; other owners of UK foreshore include the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. In Orkney and Shetland, the Crown does not claim ownership of foreshore.[27] |
| Territorial seabed | The Crown Estate owns virtually all of the UK's seabed from mean low water to the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) limit[27] |
| Continental shelf and extraterritorial rights | Sovereign rights of the UK in the seabed and its resources vested by the Continental Shelf Act 1964 (the subsoil and substrata below the surface of the seabed but excluding oil, gas and coal)[27] |
Other rights and Interests
Other rights and interests include:
| Blue Water and Solihull shopping centres | The Crown Estate has a 4.97% share of Lend Lease Retail Partnership which provides an equity interest in the Bluewater shopping centre and the Touchwood Court Shopping Centre. |
| Retail parks | Fort Kinnaird shopping park, Gallagher retail park, The Shires Retail Park: Owned 50/50 through "The Gibraltar Limited Partnership" with The Hercules Unit Trust, a Jersey based property unit trust. Gibraltar Limited Partnerships are often used to avoid or reduce UK tax payments.[28][29] |
| Retail park | Crown Point shopping park. |
| Retail/office buildings, Princes Street, London | 66.67% interest [27] |
| Savoy Estate Appointment | right to receive 23% of the income from the Duchy of Lancaster's Savoy Estate in London.[27] |
| Minerals | Gold and silver in mineral strata in the UK. Mineral rights in approx. 115,000 hectares of land where The Crown Estate does not own the 'surface interest'.[27] |
| Salmon fishings in Scotland | Salmon fishings in tidal and non-tidal waters in Scotland, except where these have been granted to third parties. |
| Native mussels and oysters in Scotland | Wild crustaceans (does not include cultivated crustaceans) |
| reversionary and contingent interests | Some properties are sold by The Crown Estate for public benefit (such as educational or religious use) with a reverter clause, which means ownership may revert to the Crown Estate in the event of a change use.
Hereditary properties of the Monarch currently in Government use will revert to The Crown Estate in the event of the Government use ceasing.[27] |
| Escheated land - | Land that has no owner other than the Crown as lord paramount of the whole soil of the country. Escheat can result bankruptcy or the dissolution of companies. Freehold land owned by dissolved companies which were registered in England or Wales are dealt with by the Treasury Solicitor as Bona Vacantia. |
| Licences and right granted at nil rent | Includes: water mains, cables, substations and war memorials. |
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