This week, the Crown Estate sold seabed rights to six offshore wind developments for £879m.
The £879m of option fees are paid to the Crown Estate to secure the rights to lease the seabed in each year that the wind farms are in development. They equate to £110,000 per megawatt per year, compared with £20,000 the last time a leasing round was held in 2010. More than £8bn could be paid to the Crown Estate over 10 years.
When the wind farms begin generating electricity, these option fees stop and developers instead pay 2pc of gross turnover to the Crown Estate as rent.
The Queen gets something called the Sovereign Grant in exchange for surrendering all profits from the Crown Estate to the government. Every year, the Queen is given an amount of money equivalent to 25% of the Crown Estate's profits.
The Sovereign Grant for 2020-21 is £85.9 million. That is now due to be boosted by 220m per year.
An increase in the grant to from 15% to 25% was approved by Parliament in March 2017, to help lay for a £369 refurbishment of Buckingham Palace.
I ranted about this earlier this week (see Icons passim). I am astonished that it is not more controversial.
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| On the day of the sale "Empty shelves: No custard creams for Brits in Belgium" was the lead business story on my BBC News home page |
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