Crown Estate: Wales

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that we need to think about energy security. One thing that is coming out of what is happening, tragically, in the Middle East at the moment is that, because oil and gas prices are set internationally, this impacts on every country’s economy. That is why we need to invest in the green economy, in nuclear, in wind turbines and in solar—so that we become independent. When issues such as this happen and when there are shocks to the international energy markets, we do our best to ensure that we are insulated from them.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, in my ministerial experience, the Crown Estate arrangements, in fact, worked pretty well. The Minister will be glad to hear that. But the more important question for the Minister today is: would Welsh households not have been helped by lower bills if Labour had not gone down the dangerous road of banning North Sea oil and gas? That looks even more irresponsible, with oil prices spiking because of the war in the Middle East.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

Just to repeat my response to the previous question, we have to make sure that we are independent of these problems that we are facing. Rather than relying on fossil fuel, the prices of which are set internationally, we need to have home-grown green energy to ensure that we can resist these problems. I just want to point out one or two things about how we are helping people in Wales. We are cutting household energy bills, saving the average household £150. We have helped over 160,000 people with the minimum wage. We have increased pensions by 4.8%, and we have increased benefits for people out of work by 3.8%. The 700,000 pensioners in Wales are going to be better off because of this Government.