The king charles of england has requested that the benefits of £1 billion per year -1,140 million euros- generated by an agreement for the exploitation of six owned wind farms of the Crown Estate are earmarked “to the wider public good” instead of going to the accounts of the British Crown.
The Royal House is owns half of Britain’s coastline and ocean floor up to 12 nautical miles offshore, a highly valuable asset in the midst of the renewable energy boom. And Carlos III has been able to take advantage of it in recent years.
In fact, the Crown has reached a lease agreement for six wind farms whose seabed is its property, generating a huge and totally unexpected profit not only for the Royal House, but also for the State. These six wind projects will generate enough energy to supply more than seven million homes in 2030.
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As reported by the BBC, these earnings would be 1,000 million pounds a year for at least three years. Thus, and in a statement, Carlos III has made it clear that he does not want the Crown to benefit from these profits and that they be used “for a broader public good.” That is, at UK public coffers instead of the grant that the British monarchy receives annually each year.
This decision by King Carlos comes just a few weeks after a Christmas speech in which he spoke of the “great anxiety and difficulties” that many Britons live trying to “pay their bills and keep their families fed and warm” in the midst of escalating prices in the United Kingdom.
Reduce subsidy
A statement issued by the Buckingham Palace notes that “in view of the windfall from offshore energy” the UK’s Private Purse Secretary, Sir Michael Stevens, who manages the finances of the Royal Household, has contacted the first Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the finance minister jeremy hunt, to request that those 1,000 million pounds a year “be used for a broader public good”.
In addition, Carlos III also requests reduce the proportion of the profits of the Crown that go to the annual subsidy received by the British Royal House.
Nowadays, the Sovereign Grant is based on 25% of the Crown Estate’s earnings, that is to say, of the commercial business of lands and properties that belong to the monarch -without counting the fortune of the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster nor the private fortune of Carlos III-. It is estimated that the capital value of this portfolio is higher than £15 billion sterling (more than 17,000 million euros).
Therefore, the subsidy increases if the benefits of the Crown estate increase, however, it does not decrease when the benefits decrease. This is what Carlos III wants to avoid with these profits of 1,000 million pounds a year, that is, that despite the increase in assets, this is not reflected in the annual amount received by the Crown.
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The percentage of the Sovereign Grant increased from 15% to 25% in 2017 to cover £369 million worth of 10-year repairs to Buckingham Palace.
This grant is intended for pay all expenses of the royal members who are active on the agenda as representatives of the Crown, as well as to pay for travel for official engagements and the maintenance of all the royal palaces.
36 wind farms
Three of the new locations for these offshore wind farms are located off the coast of northern Wales, Cumbria and Lancashire, and the other three are in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
These six parks are added to the 36 that are already operational on sea floors owned by the Crown Estate off the coast of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Dan Labbad, chief executive of the Crown Estate, hailed the benefits of this “next generation of projects.”
“They demonstrate the far-reaching value that our world-class offshore wind sector can deliver to the nation: local energy for all, jobs and investment for communities, revenue for taxpayers, clean energy for the benefit of the environment, and a thoughtful, sustainable approach. that respects our rich biodiversity,” he said.
