The Crown Estate: A Public Asset Paying Into a Private Grant
The Crown Estate is one of Britain's largest property owners. It owns most of the seabed around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland out to the 12-nautical-mile limit. It delivered 1.1 billion pounds in revenue profit in 2024 to 2025 and contributed 5 billion pounds to the Treasury over the past decade. As offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy expand, these revenues will grow substantially. Seabed leasing for offshore wind alone is worth hundreds of millions annually, rising further as more capacity is awarded.
Currently, 12% of this income, rising to higher percentages in windfall years, funds the Sovereign Grant, which reached 132 million pounds in 2025 to 2026. The seabed, the platform for Britain's entire offshore energy future, belongs to the nation. It should fund the nation's energy transition, not the monarchy's operating expenses.
A. Transfer the Seabed to a National Seabed Authority
The offshore seabed held by the Crown Estate is transferred to a new National Seabed Authority, a public body reporting directly to Parliament rather than to the Treasury.
- The NSA manages seabed leasing for offshore wind, tidal, wave, and subsea cable infrastructure at commercial terms
- All revenues from seabed leasing flow to the British Energy Sovereign Fund (Section XI), ring-fenced for marine energy investment, grid infrastructure, and the national insulation programme
- Crown Estate Scotland is already devolved to Crown Estate Scotland (Interim Management), established under the Scotland Act 2016. Forge respects this and does not disturb it. Welsh seabed management is devolved to a Welsh equivalent body on the Scottish model
- The Crown Estate's urban portfolio (Regent Street, the West End, Windsor Great Park, rural estates) continues operating as before, with revenues going to the Treasury as now
B. The Sovereign Grant: Fixed at 50 Million
The Sovereign Grant mechanism links royal funding to Crown Estate revenues. When offshore wind income grows, the monarchy's income grows, not because the Royal Family did anything to earn it, but because the formula was written that way. The 132 million pound grant in 2025 to 2026 funds a legitimate royal function but does so through a mechanism that is neither logical nor controllable.
- Sovereign Grant replaced with a fixed Civil List payment of 50 million pounds per year, reviewed by Parliament every 5 years and uprated with CPI
- This funds the monarchy's genuine constitutional functions: state ceremonies, diplomatic reception, maintenance of occupied royal residences, and the working royals' public duties
- The saving versus the current Sovereign Grant: approximately 82 million pounds in Year 1, growing as seabed revenues grow. These savings go directly into the Energy Sovereign Fund
- The principle: the monarchy performs a valued constitutional function for which it should be properly funded by Parliament. It should not receive windfall income from an energy transition it played no role in creating
C. Sovereign Wealth Fund: Not Squandering It Twice
The UK had the same opportunity as Norway in the 1970s and 1980s: a windfall from natural resource extraction that could have funded a sovereign wealth fund. Norway's Government Pension Fund Global is now worth over 1.7 trillion pounds. The UK spent the North Sea revenues on tax cuts. Norway saved them. The result is that Norway owns 1.5% of every listed company in Europe, pays no national debt interest, and can sustain public services indefinitely from investment income.
The opportunity now is offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy, which will generate seabed lease revenues at a growing scale for decades. These revenues flow into the British Energy Sovereign Fund, invested initially in UK infrastructure (renewable generation, grid storage, water cleanup, step-down care centres), then diversified internationally over time. The Fund is managed independently of government at arm's length, publishing annual accounts and investment returns. Political interference in investment decisions is prohibited by statute.
D. Cut the Jobs Tax, and Rebalance Business Rates
Two problems need solving. First, employment is overtaxed: employer National Insurance is a direct tax on jobs that makes hiring more expensive. Second, business rates are broken, taxing high-street premises by physical footprint while online retailers pay warehouse rates on remote fulfilment centres, a systematic advantage that has accelerated high-street decline for two decades.
The instinctive answer, a straight business rates cut, fails because the evidence shows commercial landlords capture 50 to 75% of any rates reduction through higher rents as leases renew. The money ends up with property owners, not businesses. So Forge cuts the jobs tax, which cannot be captured by a landlord, and rebalances business rates structurally rather than cutting them.
The link to Section I: Universal 15% VAT removes zero-rating, including on food. Food retailers, currently zero-rated, will now charge 15% VAT on their entire stock. The offset for business comes through the employer National Insurance cut, which reduces the cost of every employee, and the structural rebalancing of business rates that shifts the burden away from high street premises toward large online warehouses. For a labour-intensive high street retailer, the employer NI saving is more valuable than a business rates cut would have been, and unlike a rates cut it cannot be captured by their landlord.
- Cut the jobs tax from Year 1. Employer National Insurance threshold raised from 5,000 to 14,000 pounds per employee, and the Employment Allowance expanded to 15,000 pounds for small firms. Combined cost approximately 9.5 billion pounds, funded from the broader VAT base. A small firm employing four people on modest wages pays no employer National Insurance at all. A business rates cut would have been captured by landlords; a National Insurance cut cannot be.
- Business rates rebalanced, revenue neutral. The burden shifts toward large online distribution warehouses and out-of-town fulfilment centres and away from high street premises. High-street relief without the landlord windfall, at no net fiscal cost, because it changes who pays rather than how much is collected.
- Zero rates for properties under 25,000 pounds rateable value. Around 400,000 businesses: small shops, cafes, pubs, hair salons, workshops. Zero from Day 1, automatic, funded within the rebalancing by the shift onto large online warehouses.
- Annual revaluation instead of the slow current cycle, keeping values close to market reality and avoiding cliff-edge shocks.
- Online marketplace supplementary levy. Platforms with over 500 million pounds in UK revenues pay a 0.5% supplementary digital infrastructure contribution, additional to corporation tax. Amazon, eBay, Vinted, and Shein contribute to the physical infrastructure their customers and workers use.
| Business type | Staff | Employer NI now | Under Forge | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small cafe (market town) | 5 part-time | ~6,000 | Zero (Employment Allowance) | Saves ~6,000 |
| Independent care provider | 20 staff | ~38,000 | ~11,000 | Saves ~27,000 |
| Medium high-street retailer | 40 staff | ~78,000 | ~24,000 | Saves ~54,000 |
| Large supermarket | 300 staff | ~580,000 | ~180,000 | Saves ~400,000 |
| Online warehouse operator | 500 staff | NI cut applies | Higher business rates | Net contributor via rebalancing |
Illustrative figures. The labour-intensive high street benefits most from the NI cut; large online warehouses contribute more through the rates rebalancing.
The combined effect: seabed revenues fund the energy transition instead of the Sovereign Grant. The monarchy is properly funded at a fixed Parliamentary level. The jobs tax is cut so it is cheaper to employ people, with the benefit reaching employment rather than landlords. Business rates are rebalanced so the high street pays less and online giants pay their share. A sovereign wealth fund begins accumulating. These are separate reforms that individually make sense and collectively transform the relationship between public assets, public revenue, and the businesses that serve British communities.